Darkest Part (Of Me)
by Slytherette97
Summary: On the night that Tom orders him to relieve his family of his burden, through the power of his highly persuasive ability, Harry doesn't just survive the ordeal. He's saved by the most unlikeliest of people, and in turn, becomes the savior of him as well. (Book One of the Series 'Running') Fenrir Greyback/Harry Potter.
1. Chapter 1

Non-magic AU, I guess, with some magical aspects. Fenrir Greyback/Harry Potter. Warnings for **Child Abuse, Torture** (Not in main pairing), **Werewolves** , and even an **Attempted Suicide**. Triggers, please don't read if you suffer from **Depression, Anxiety, PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), Eating Disorders, or a History with Abuse.** I do not want to be the cause for an anxiety attack, or a mental disruption. Please, don't read on if you have anything of the mentioned.

Summary:  
On the night that Tom orders him to relieve his family of his burden, through the power of his highly persuasive Element, Harry doesn't just survive the ordeal.  
He's saved by the most unlikeliest of people, and in turn, becomes the savior of him as well.

 **Darkest Part (Of Me)  
** **Book One of the Series 'Running'**

 ** **Chapter One  
**** **Re-establishing friendships**

"Harry, come on! You'll be late for school!" Lily yelled, whilst simultaneously bundling up her other teenage son, much to his disgust, to the fullest extent; a brand new beanie, thick gloves and a thick, warm – of course, __fashionable__ black jacket. She knew Harry was self-sufficient enough to dress himself appropriately in the provided cold weather gear, he'd been doing so since he was just old enough to realize that cold wind made him sick. One stubborn son to care for was hard enough, and she was aware enough to be grateful for such an adaptable, gifted son as Harry. Henry was nearly unbearable to dress. " _Harry!_ " She called exasperatedly.

"Coming, Mum! Almost done!" Harry called back, affixing the rather sad and outdated beanie to his mess of curly raven hair. He checked himself one last time in the hallway mirror, taking extra special care to hide the steadily darkening bruises on his wrists – even going so far as to slide on a few more bracelets Uncle Sirius had gotten him for his birthday. A purpose he didn't think Harry would use them for, but still.

Ron and Hermione were beginning to suspect something foul was at play at home lately, and it made him nervous to think about what they'd think if they saw what he looked like under his clothes – a mirage of blues, blacks, sickly greens and yellows, and the odd scar or two. So he became just that bit more paranoid about where his clothes covered, constantly making sure never to let them see him without proper coverage. Always long sleeved shirts and bracelets, always long pants and knee high shoes, even in Summer. The way __He__ liked him to dress, the way __He__ ordered him to.

He'd long since done away with any other short sleeved shirts and shorts, and with his Mum's offers to take him shopping to get new more revealing clothes. Anything he got her to buy were long-sleeved and full covering, and though she looked at him oddly every time, he rode out the stares and questions without a word and wore them despite it. __His__ anger wasn't worth it, and his clothing options weren't worth the trouble it'd cause. She didn't need any more stress, and she wouldn't get any from him – not even if it left scars on him. She didn't deserve it.

"Harry, come on!" Henry cried, annoyed enough that Harry heard him actually _ _stomp his foot.__ Despite being thirteen and apparently an __adult__. He smiled crisply at the mirror. "I wanna get there early, Amanda said she'd meet me at the gate! __Come on!__ "

Harry sighed quietly, reluctantly fiddling once more with his beanie, before nodding to his pallid reflection and tugging at his sleeves one last time. He was as covered as he was going to get. "Alright, I'm ready," he said finally, trudging down the stairs tiredly and adjusting the strap of his bag. "Keep your pants on. We'll get there on time."

"We only have ten minutes to get there before the first bell!" Henry hissed angrily, face flushing a brutal red reminiscent of their Mum's hair. "If Amanda isn't there by the time we get there, you're dead meat."

"Henry!" Lily snapped. "Is that any way to speak to your brother? No! I'm sure he just forgot to put something in his bag –"

"Yeah, like his eyeliner and tampons," Henry sneered, glowering when Harry only remained stoic and silent to his taunts. "You sure you birthed two sons? He could be a girl in disguise, looks too much like one to be a man –"

"ENOUGH!" Lily screamed, angrily tossing her work bag over her shoulder and glowering darkly as she snatched her keys from the key bowl by the door. "I cannot – no, I __refuse__ to do this today, twice yesterday was well enough for me! I'm late for work _again_ , and you're both late for school! No more arguments! Zilch, __nada!__ I don't want to hear who has what, or who's fault whatever is. You are sixteen and thirteen years old, too old to be carrying on like toddlers spitting the dummy! Now get out into that car right now, or else you're both grounded for the foreseeable future. Don't test me today, boys."

"But, Mum..!" spluttered Henry.

"Don't even try it!" Lily snapped, shooting her younger son a withering glare. "I don't want to hear either of you. Get in the car. __Now__ _._ "

"This is so unfair!" Henry burst out, but shuffled obediently out the doorway anyway, completely cowed by their Mum's thunderous glare.

Harry followed him silently, sliding into the back seat when Lily unlocked the car and locked up the house behind her. Henry threw himself into the front passenger seat grumpily, glaring moodily out the windshield, as he was wont to do whenever he didn't get his own way.

It took a massive amount of control to not roll his eyes, but Harry managed it when he saw how flustered Mum had gotten in the last ten minutes. She was dressed to the nines in her work gear, flaming red hair curled and pressed neatly in an artistic bun atop her head. She wasn't wearing any make-up, despite looking so classy in black slacks and a white blouse. She worked at the local Hospital, as a surgeon and doctor, and she oft wore make-up only when she was assigned to desk work and was going out after for drinks. Today she looked incredibly harassed, an angry tint to her natural cheeks and her eyebrows thrust together in an impressive scowl.

Harry felt bad for the trouble he caused her.

"You're so gonna get it," Henry muttered darkly, kicking his feet up on the dashboard, despite their Mum's constant reprimands not to. "If she's not there when we pull up... you'll wanna run."

"Just shut up, Henry," Harry mumbled, and not to his surprise, Henry did. He was still his older brother, after all.

 **-oOoOoOo-**

"Hey, so what's with Henry today, Harry? He looks a bit pissed at something," Ron commented, though not without taking his eyes from his food tray.

It was lunch time, the one time of the day that Ron was most lively and energetic. Other times he was lazier than a snail, doing the bare minimum and scraping by on his school work. He loved food so much, he even voluntarily ran to the lunch line, a feat which not even the Physical Education professors could coax him into. It was also a time where the most trouble happened, as the most volatile people mixed with the peaceful and neutral students. Active elements, some dubbed them, for they had the most unpredictable and somewhat brutal abilities, and one wouldn't know when they were accidentally targeted next.

Harry thought that was rather silly. There were two types of people in the school that would be 'accidentally' targeted. One, would be if their ability was a natural rival for one of the Active elements, and the other, were those that deliberately taunted them into a fight.

Harry himself hadn't been identified with any abilities yet. An oddity, considering everyone had one element or another by the time they hit Elementary school, and one needed an element to attend Hogwarts. There were those who didn't have any abilities whatsoever, but they didn't attend Hogwarts - the abilities here could kill them in an instant if they accidentally messed with the wrong person. And there were more than enough people here like that.

Harry was short for his age, but he was lithe with toned muscles and quite compact. He was also very quick, fast enough to outrun any slow building elements, and certainly fast enough to beat the other person to the punch. He was quite good at that, not that it happened much. But there were always some out there that wanted to show their worth and superiority over others, and picked him as the one that would help them.

He'd never lost any fights, and no one really ever tried anything for years. It was a rumor that his ability was to be faster, stronger, and quicker than any opponent that faced him, and he supposed that was the thing that stopped anyone from attempting to take him down.

"Amanda said she'd meet him by the gate this morning," Harry told him wryly, smirking slightly as he popped the seal on his salad and began picking at the tomatoes. "And he had his heart set on seeing her, I guess. I don't think he slept all night, probably too busy thinking about her."

"Amanda __Pettlecorn__?" Ron burst out incredulously. "Isn't she that bird that plays all the guys? The one that thinks she's too good for anyone here? __That__ Amanda?"

"The one and only," Harry said dryly, nodding. "And can you guess how this morning played out?"

Ron scoffed and shoved in a forkful of macaroni and cheese, ignoring the extras that dropped onto his shirt. "Obviously it was a no-show," he said thickly, snorting indelicately. "Serves him right for thinking he could get a piece of that. Everyone's been trying since she came here – she's as loony as that Luna Lovegood!"

"Oi, Luna isn't that bad!" Harry said hotly, and glanced over at the tiny blonde girl that always sat alone, always reading a book, and always ignoring the Active people that used their abilities around her like they weren't even there. Today it was a Dr. Seuss book, and she was reading it upside down. "She's just a bit – eccentric, different. And there's nothing bad about being different. She's like Einstein."

"Or yourself," put in a very smug voice.

Harry rolled his eyes and grunted. "Yeah, yeah, like me too, I guess," he muttered. "Hello, Hermione."

"Harry, Ron," said Hermione primly, dropping gracefully into a seat opposite them and sliding her tray of food and bag onto the tabletop. She gave Harry a sympathetic smile. "I heard about what happened this morning. Amanda hasn't stopped talking about it since Chemistry, I hear. Bragging that she had one of the Potter boys wrapped around her finger. I thought it was horrible of her to do it, yet again, and even more so as it's your little brother. Poor Henry, I bet he thought she was sincere this time."

"Henry must've heard about it from someone, then," Harry said grimly, and looked over at his brother - sitting alone with his arms crossed, moodily chewing on a sandwich and glaring glumly around him. "That's probably why he's sulking over there."

"Well, it serves him right! Hopefully it'll pull his head out of his arse," Ron remarked, eyeing Hermione's apple and slices of oranges intently. "Maybe he'll finally realize that the world doesn't revolve round him. No offense, Harry, but your brother's a spoiled little shit."

"None taken," Harry said dryly, and slowly picked at the salad, nibbling on a piece of lettuce and cheese consecutively. Ron was right of course, Henry was a spoiled little shit. He got whatever he wanted almost immediately, and even more so since Tom entered the picture. But he was still Harry's younger brother, and he had to protect him no matter what. Even if a cuff round the head would do him a bit of good, the so-called punishments Harry went through wouldn't. He couldn't afford Henry to derail even more, now more than ever.

Hermione and Ron looked at each other then, and Harry could just sense what was going to happen. He'd expected it, sooner or later. It was inevitable when one had a curious know-it-all around all the time, they were bound to pick up something unusual some when. Harry just wished he knew what he'd done to make her suspect anything untoward.

"Harry?" Hermione asked hesitantly, ever the first one to ask a question or broach a taboo subject. Harry almost smiled, a barely there quirk of his lips. "We've been noticing some things lately, and well... Since you quit the swim team, you've been a little... off. Different. Why is that?" She very cautiously asked.

 _He_ _ _gave me one too many bruises and scars to hide, it would have been too obvious when I showed up all black and blue.__

Harry shrugged indifferently instead of saying that though. "Just didn't feel like swimming anymore," he lied, rather unconvincingly.

"But you're the best swimmer this school has! You've won more races than Malfoy has clothes!" Ron said, almost pleadingly, and it was almost like the floodgates had opened. "You've changed, mate. You've changed so much, I can hardly remember what you used to be like anymore. You wear these bloody __Emo__ clothes constantly, you wear loads of bracelets, you don't ever change in the locker room – hell, you're not even comfortable in your own skin anymore!"

Harry scowled darkly, suddenly feeling that the small salad he'd gotten was as unappetizing as plated dog shit. "I'm fine," he lied again, somehow even more unconvincing than before, clenching his jaw and shoving the tray away.

"And that!" Ron unexpectedly snapped, jabbing a harsh finger at Harry's chest. "You never used to do __that__ _!_ You never lied to us before you quit the bloody team – ever since that prat, Riddle proposed to your Mum, you've gone all weird! You __never__ used to be like this!"

"Yeah, well people change all the time! I'm __fine__ , guys," Harry snapped, clenching his jaw even tighter despite the smacking pain in his teeth. His hands curled into fists on the table. "Honestly. You've nothing to worry about, so just drop it."

Hermione lunged over the table as if sensing how close he was to leaving and grasped at his hands, almost too tightly. "Harry, please, are you suicidal?" She asked desperately, eyes drilling holes into his skull.

"NO!" Harry snarled at them, and almost immediately regretted it. They stared at him with wide eyes, as if he'd said a clear and resounding __yes__. The idiots. He growled and stood up, throwing Hermione's hands from his and flinging his bag over his shoulder angrily. "Just leave me the hell alone!" He snapped at them, and stormed away before the urge to throw something welled up any stronger in him.

Some unfortunate soul lingered in his path, and even that was too much for him. He shoved them aside with a snarl, hardly noticing as they almost stumbled to the floor. He'd feel bad about it later, but he wouldn't remember whom it was he'd pushed, and no one would step forward to tell Harry Potter off.

A sea of eyes watched him go, but most obvious were the wide eyes of Henry, his innocent little brother. The anger had long since been drained from those hazel eyes and replaced by a pout, but now they were identical pools of unwavering interest and shock. Harry supposed that should be right – he hadn't ever snapped like that before. He'd suppressed nearly all emotion when Lily introduced them to Tom nearing three years ago, for an especially good reason.

And now that dam was breaking, and he needed to disappear before almost four years of pain and fury were released onto innocent students - his suspicious, but well-meaning friends most especially. He __needed__ to leave.

"Harry! Are you alright –?"

"Not __now__ , Colin!" Harry barked, not looking back once at a floored Colin Creevey, and booked it from the main hallway before anyone else could follow him.

What was the one place that relaxed him – that brought back only happy, good memories? Untainted from the bloody bastard that his Mum was dating? It could only be one place still in the school. The one that he hadn't entered ever since he'd quit the team, on Tom's orders.

The Pool room.

 **-oOoOoOo-**

Unsurprisingly, he wasn't the only one to take refuge here. But it was for an entirely different reason for them, nothing at all like his own need for escape.

Draco Malfoy and his odd group of cronies acted like they owned the school, and thus were above anyone else that attended it. They mainly congregated in the Pool room, using it as a common room or a place to bully others without any teachers watching them. Ever since Harry had quit the team, thus ending a two year competition with the blonde, Malfoy had grown arrogant and even more egotistic about his skills on the team. He was good, perhaps even the teams best asset, but Harry had been better - more at home in the water.

Harry forgot about them when he stormed in, forgot about everything else but the sound of the water. It was at complete odds with the turmoil welling up deep within him, his heart its own raging ocean. He slammed his bag down on the concrete podium, regardless of the things in there, and practically threw himself down beside it to stare down at the water with an uninhibited view. He was still steaming, yes, but now it was tinged with an unhealthy amount of fear and panic, nearly as powerful as the rage inside him.

What was __He__ going to do when Hermione and Ron went to Lily about all this - and it was doubtless that they would, they were the sort of people that went straight to the source. The agreement specified that no one would ever know about what went on in his room when Tom slept over. No one was supposed to know - they couldn't, _or else._ Was Tom going to kill him? Would he go after Lily and Henry, like he said all those years ago? Harry was his punching bag, his release for all the violent tendencies in him, and if he was locked up somewhere else or put into Carers, what would he do?

Lily wasn't strong enough to handle all that rage - all that violence, Harry barely could. She was barely making things meet without James's money to add padding to the bills as it was, even as a well-paid doctor. If Tom put her out of action, what would she do without her only source of income? Especially without Henry or himself working? Tom had old money and prestige, but he was cruel enough to cut them off without a thought to their survival.

The house would be taken, Henry's things, his things and Lily's things would be sold to bundle up some money to rent a small apartment. Henry and he would be kicked out of Hogwarts, and Lily would lose her job.

That meant he'd have to talk to Tom about all this. Carefully tell him that he'd have to lay off bruising him for a while so things could calm down. They couldn't lose their only source of money.

"Oh look, Draco! It's Poor Potty Potter! Come for a nice little cool off, Potty? Too hot out there for you in all those clothes?"

"Shove off, Parkinson. I'm not interested in any of your bullshit today," Harry sniped back, not willing to break his stare for the spiteful little twit that was Malfoy's girlfriend. She wasn't worth the air she unfortunately breathed.

His stare was broken anyway by the lean, almost naked form of Malfoy, clad in only very tight swimming briefs. He stood confidently in Harry's line of sight, his most likely bleached blonde hair slicked back and wet from swimming and condensation. His pointy nose was upturned and he looked every bit the pompous little Daddy's boy he was known as. Harry sneered.

"What do you think you're doing here, Potter?" Malfoy asked evenly enough, for being almost completely naked and under Harry's irate and admittedly very intimidating stare. Even from behind those ridiculous round spectacles, his glare was potent. It always had been. "You haven't ventured past those doors for years. What brings you here now?"

Harry bared his teeth in a reflexive snarl, running more on autopilot than anything else. "Can't a guy relax by the pool every once in a while, Malfoy?" He sneered at the blonde.

"Not when one hadn't for years, no," Malfoy answered coolly, a perfect impersonation of Mr. Malfoy, slate grey eyes staring at his face as if intrigued with something. He suddenly quirked a sharp eyebrow and gave a glacial smile. "So I presume something happened between yourself and the two paupers you deign to associate with. What happened, Potter, Granger not spreading her legs far enough to fit you?" He sneered contemptuously.

Harry was on his feet and in Malfoy's face faster than the eye could see, and Malfoy barely had a second to blink before a hand was gripping his throat and he was balancing on the very tips of his toes. He choked, gurgling quietly as that hand tightened even further round his windpipe. He could vaguely hear his friends shouting and running to his aid, and he hurried to stay them with a sharp gesture of his hand. He could handle Harry, even in this uncharacteristic violent episode. The boy was too kind-hearted to attempt to really hurt him.

"Going to - strangle me, H-Harry?" The blonde spluttered thickly, skin turning a dusky red from the heady pressure in his trachea. His eyes still stared at Harry though, at the glowing emerald eyes that were narrowed under arched, thunderous brows. He was simply unearthly, standing there like a Grecian God, holding him as if he weighed nothing and long wild locks of raven hair curling around those gem-like eyes. It would have taken his breath away, if it wasn't trapped in his lungs.

" _No_ ," Harry growled out viciously, but then he somehow lifted Malfoy even higher and tightened his grasp until it almost sent Malfoy over the edge into blackness. It almost panicked Malfoy into believing that he would - that he'd actually stand there and strangle him to death. But then, miraculous of the miraculous, Harry slowly began to loosen his grip, and lowered him to the balls of his feet.

The sleeves of Harry's shirt and hoodie had slipped back when he'd lifted the blonde, and as if time suddenly slowed to a snails pace, he watched on helplessly as Malfoy's eyes darted to the finger-made bruises on his wrist, and the tip of an old scar that ran the length of his forearm. Those grey eyes widened in shock, dawning realization blossoming in the fathomless depths, before flitting to look back up at him in horror.

Time returned back to normal, and with it, the loud shouts of Malfoy's cronies, and the sound of the bell ringing for fifth period. Harry cursed every swear he'd ever learned, and shoved the blonde away, hardly caring as he toppled head first into the pool and half-sprayed him with chlorinated water. He didn't bother to check if the blonde had hit his head on the way down, nor did he care that one of Malfoy's friends had sent a gust of vicious spiked ice at him. Nothing ended up hitting him - though he was unsure whether that was down to the fact that the boy had poor aim, or that he felt colder than ice on the inside.

Someone had seen them - _ _the bruises__. __Draco Malfoy__ _had seen them_. Malfoy, the one person that hated him almost as much as Tom Riddle himself.

Sweat beaded along his forehead and back, and his heart thundered heavily in his chest like a War drum, feeling so heavy that it was beating out the tips of his fingers and toes. He was almost feverish with fear, sweating heavily despite the freezing temperature outside. But then, he blinked and looked around. How had he gotten outside his house?

 _"Fucking hell._ "

 **-oOoOoOo-**

"Harry James Potter, where on earth have you __been?!__ I received a call from the Headmaster of your school, saying you'd left in the middle of the day - where did you go?!" Lily shrieked, flying into the room with an unnatural wind blowing her hair from its messy bun and flapping her coat around her legs. Henry awkwardly skirted the room behind her, but remained thankfully silent, just watching with wide eyes. "Are you doing drugs? Did you get in a fight with the Malfoy boy? Why? Why did you leave? __What happened?__ " She demanded, tossing her bag on the couch so she was free to cross her arms.

Harry stared at her blankly, not feeling anything but a twinge of pain in his chest and an odd twisting in his temples - a headache was forming fast and furiously. She'd only just gotten home from a stressful day - stress he had created. He shrugged carelessly.

Lily's matching emerald eyes narrowed dangerously, and Harry grimaced at the sight. She was very close to exploding, and their house couldn't handle another episode like the one back when James lived here. Lily seemed to realize it, for she let her hands dangle into fists at her side and visibly tensed her shoulders, as if that would help to hold back the floodgates of her element. "Don't you dare just shrug at me, young man. I was worried sick all day," she said tightly through pale, tense lips. "You better tell me why you left and where you went, and you better tell me right now. Or you will really regret it."

There was a pregnant pause in which every facet of tension could be felt in the air, which crackled with invisible electricity - like it had been ever since Harry had sat down on the couch. "I... I freaked out and came here to calm down," Harry mumbled. "I couldn't stay there anymore, so I came here instead."

Lily was quiet, just staring at him with a steely gaze. And when she spoke, it was with an intense and equally quiet voice that had shame spiraling right through him. "I didn't know you were feeling like this, Harry," she murmured helplessly. "I thought you were taking the change so nicely, like Henry... I guess I didn't look close enough at you to know different. I'm so sorry, my darling... I've failed you."

"No, you - _ _I__ failed _ _you__ , Mum," Harry said, and the first hints of emotion bled into his voice - sadness, and __fear__. It choked him bitterly, a mixture of serrated and hooked razors lodged high up in his throat. A brittle smile quirked his lips. "I just didn't handle it well enough, and it's my own fault. I haven't given him - _Tom_ , a chance. I guess I just thought he was trying to replace Dad, and I didn't like it. I'm sorry it came to this."

Lily sniffled delicately and wiped under her eyes, as if catching tears that had yet to fall. "No, you kids come first. I should have waited longer before moving on from your father. It was selfish of me to move on so quickly, and to get engaged after only two years!" She exclaimed, shaking her head as if it were such an absurd idea. "No, this is all my fault. You're my children, you both deserve the best, and I should have realized that after the divorce, you'd both be upset. If anyone is to blame, it's me."

"No, really, Mum, it's my fault -"

Harry's words were drowned out by a rather crisp knock from the front door, startling all three from their self-blaming. Henry was first to move, steps unsure and face as equally uncertain as he disappeared from the room. It was almost unheard of for them to have visitors on a Monday night. Whilst Tom was engaged to Lily, he still hadn't moved in just yet. It was apparently hard for a big time lawyer to find a spare day to move into his fiance's house, even if they'd been engaged for two years and together four and a half.

Harry reluctantly stood from his seat and edged round his Mum when Henry hadn't come back, forcefully ignoring the way she seemed to flinch back from him, as if she couldn't handle him coming any closer. It hurt, but he expected no less when he put her through such a panic all day. It should teach him that he really couldn't afford to hurt her any more than he already had. He had to put more effort into keeping things secret, lest she fall to pieces when... No. He wouldn't even think about it, not until Wednesday, when Tom was spending the night.

Henry sidled back into the room before Harry could leave it, and he had such a queer expression on his face that Harry almost thought someone had knocked, only to disappear before they could be discovered. That sometimes happened. "Draco Malfoy's at the door," he said slowly, as if he couldn't believe it.

"Draco __Malfoy__? Lucius and Narcissa's son?" Lily asked, surprised. "Why would he be here? At this time of day?"

"I don't know," Henry mumbled, scratching awkwardly at the back of his neck. "But he's getting a bit impatient. Says he wants to talk to 'Potter', but I think he means Harry."

 _ _Fucking, blubbering hell.__

"Well, I'll go tell him to leave, then," Harry muttered decisively, already heading out to do so.

 _ _Before he fucks everything else up whilst he's at it.__

"Why don't you invite him in for supper, dear?" Lily suggested hesitantly. "We could always use another mouth to feed, and he seems a nice enough boy if he's here on more amicable reasons than to fight with you. I think it'll do you good to reaffirm your friendship with him. Make more friends than Hermione and Ron."

Harry floundered for an excuse - __any__ excuse not to invite Malfoy in. But one look at his Mum, and any reasons were swallowed back from his lips before he could speak them. She was trying. Swallowing back all bitter retorts, Harry smiled brightly at her. "Sure, I'll go tell him then," he said, and hurried to leave them before she could also pressure him into inviting him to stay the bloody night. Perhaps to even move in - he'd probably have his room.

Harry found Malfoy staring down at his manicured nails nonchalantly, as if he'd been doing it the whole time, a little too innocent looking to be natural. His quiet arrival made the blonde straighten up and slide his hand back in his pocket, a self-important smile on his thin lips. It was all too obvious what he'd been doing.

"Eavesdropping is a dirty habit, Malfoy," he told him dryly. "What brings you here at this late hour on a weekday night? Not selling any raffle tickets, I hope."

"If you call six thirty late, Potter, I'd hate to think of what you call a late night on a weekend," Malfoy said sardonically, smirking even as Harry plainly denied him entry into his home. "Can't a friend visit another friend whilst out on a leisurely stroll? It's hardly a crime, I should think."

"You would, if we __were__ friends," Harry said sharply.

"Aren't we?" Malfoy asked, as if surprised. "Why, I thought we were. That __friendly hug__ by the pool certainly said we were, and your mother seems to think we are as well. I do believe she approves of our friendship, as well."

"Enough games, Malfoy," Harry said testily, narrowing his eyes as he readied himself to slam the door in the blonde's face. "What do you want?"

"Are you sure you don't want to adjourn to a more _ _private__ room, Potter?" Malfoy prompted him, eyebrows darting up as if to dare him to say no. "I'm sure what I have to say would be rather pertinent."

Harry stared at him for one silent moment, before closing his eyes and sighing despondently. "Would you like to stay for supper, Malfoy?" He asked wearily, stepping aside to let the blonde pass. "We're having pasta and garlic bread."

Malfoy sniffed delicately and stalked in with a lax gait. "Draco," he said, rather pointedly. "And yes, I suppose I shall. We mustn't walk about on an empty stomach, after all."

"Yeah. Mustn't," Harry muttered, and shut the door.

 **-oOoOoOo-**

"So _ _this__ is where the infamous Harry Potter sleeps," Malfoy drawled, slate eyes gazing around with interest at every knick-knack, crook and cranny Harry's room had to offer. His eyes lit up upon catching sight of the Lord of the Rings movies, sat haphazardly under a television, but otherwise he didn't do anything else. "I imagined it as something more menacing looking, perhaps a stone room filled with torture devices - or perhaps cluttered with displays of every type of razor in the world and... _ _alternative__ music and band posters. I didn't think it'd be anything like __this__ , however. I'm pleasantly surprised."

"That's the second time someone's said I look Emo today in so many words," Harry muttered darkly, and shut the door firmly behind him, in the case of Henry trying to snoop in on them.

"And you wonder why?" Malfoy sniped at him, eyes darting to his black jeans and long sleeved shirt pointedly - lingering just that bit longer on his bracelet clad wrists. "You practically reek of angst and drama, Harry. An impressive feat, mind, considering you have everything you ever wanted right here in this room."

"Not my parents, together and happy once more," Harry sneered heatedly at him. "I'm not as materialistic as some like to think, despite my clothes and jewelry. I'd rather them get back together and be more happy than have half the shit in this room."

Malfoy turned to look at him at that, face almost blank - if not for the pity that seemed more cruel than naked hatred. "Yes, I'm sure you would," he said quietly. "But sometimes it's better for parents to split and go their separate ways than to stay together, unhappy."

"I don't need you to preach to me about divorced parents, Malfoy -"

"I thought I told you to call me Draco," Malfoy suddenly said. "And I'm not preaching to you about anything, I'm trying to comfort you."

"Well you should stop, because you suck at it," Harry told him shortly.

Malfoy smirked at that. "I suppose I should. I suck at comforting even myself," he said, half-amused. "But you should feel lucky. There's only one other person in the world that I'd even consider lending my expert care to, and that happens to be myself."

Harry scowled despite the veiled compliment. "Well, as interesting as this conversation is," he said, in such a way that conveyed the complete opposite. "Is there actually a point to your being here, or are you just trying to test my limits?"

The amused smirk slowly slid from the blonde's face, and he almost seemed to be uncomfortable. Malfoy cleared his throat. "You have bruises on your wrist," he declared. "I want to know who gave them to you and why."

"And how do you know I didn't just fall down, or hit something the wrong way?" Harry asked him sharply.

" _Please,_ " Malfoy scoffed sardonically, dropping down gracefully onto Harry's bed and lounging there like he owned the bloody thing. Harry scowled at him. "They were in the shape of fingers, grasping far too tight and far too harshly. I was close enough to see them, remember."

"Henry and I -"

"Don't even try to blame it on that little wimp, Potter," Malfoy snapped. "He's not nearly strong enough to inflict bruises that deep into the tissue. You've ruptured enough capillaries to leave them healing there for __weeks__."

"I heal quickly," Harry told him stiffly.

"Not the point," Malfoy determined.

"Why do you even care?"

The words were uttered so quietly, Malfoy had a hard time catching them. But when he did, he sat up and stared, looking as if he were actually listening for once. "We were the best of friends, once," he said quietly, intensely. "And I like to think that if I were in your situation, you would do the same thing for me."

"I would, but I doubt you'd be as gracious about it," Harry muttered, and slowly stalked over to his study desk, where he put all important documents. Including his journal. "I'm not admitting to much by mouth, but I have something that I've been putting together for years. I keep copies everywhere," he revealed quietly, and opened the bottom drawer, sucking in a deep, calming breath when he spotted his thick black journal, laying almost inconspicuously against the black colored paper.

"Is that a... a _ _diary__ _?_ "

Harry slammed the drawer shut with a loud clap, and growled angrily. "If you're going to make a fucking mockery of this, Malfoy, you can just fucking leave and forget all about it, alright?!"

"I'm sorry! Sorry.." Malfoy hurried to say, holding his hands up in an appeasing gesture - as if Harry were some wild animal. "I didn't mean to sound so derogatory, I was merely surprised that you had one in possession! You don't seem the type, dressed as you are!"

"Well how else am I supposed to vent out when no one else can know?" Harry hissed at him, as if he'd something so especially stupid it was almost inconceivable. "I can hardly waltz down to Mum and merrily tell her all about what _ _He's__ done to me, now can I? Bloody think, Malfoy!"

"So it's not your mother?" Malfoy asked abruptly, jumping forward so fast Harry almost had to move back from sheer discomfort. "It's a man, then? It wouldn't happen to be your father, would it? I hardly ever thought about James Potter, but he doesn't seem the type to brutalize his children -"

Harry almost smashed his fist into Malfoy's flawless face, before he realized he was about to do it. He slammed his fist down on the desk instead. "My father wouldn't do _ _anything__ of the sort!" Harry snarled heatedly at the startled blonde. "My Dad's a bloody Copper, he wouldn't do anything to hurt me, Henry, or Mum! He'd rather die than touch any of us like that - me especially!"

"It's Riddle then, isn't it?" Malfoy asked shrewdly, though it sounded more like a statement than a question.

Regardless, Harry nodded, and relaxed his body from its tense hunch. The injuries still left over from the last visit were smarting from his thoughtless actions, but it was a tolerable pain, compared to when they'd been freshly made.

"Shit," declared the blonde.

Harry nodded stiffly in agreement. "Yeah, shit would be right," he said bitterly, and allowed himself to slide carefully into his desk chair - almost bonelessly. It least aggravated the wounds, but it still brought about a painful sting and pinch feeling. His fingers ached to scratch at them.

"May I see that -" Malfoy began tentatively, only to suddenly pause and look at him uncertainly, as if unsure what to call it.

"My journal," Harry said tartly.

"Right. May I see your journal?"

Harry bent once more to take out the journal from the drawer, breathing shallowly as one of the more brutal bruises on his back twinged in anger. He didn't make as much noise as he would have, because Malfoy was watching him closely, but it seemed just the accelerated breathing was enough to spark suspicion in those grey eyes.

"You're hurt."

Harry exhaled forcefully and sat up, tossing the bulging black book beside Malfoy with nary a care that it tumbled once and threatened to fall out from the leather binding. "Obviously," he muttered, but he continued on before the blonde could say something about them. "I took pictures when I documented the... punishments. Some of them are pretty gnarly, so you'll want to be cautious when looking at them," he said, voice soft.

Malfoy hesitated, bringing his slim hand to hover over the bulging cover of the black book. "Are you certain I can look through it?" He asked lowly, uncharacteristically concerned. "I know I wouldn't want someone else pawing through my personals, especially something as important as this."

"As long as you don't damage it," Harry muttered.

"Right, you mentioned you have others..." Malfoy breathed, nodding shallowly. "Tell me if -"

"Just hurry up and look through it already, Malfoy! I've more than given you my permission to," Harry snapped at him bitterly.

Malfoy glared at him in annoyance and snatched the journal from the bed covers, all sense of concern clearly gone. "If you'd have allowed me to continue, you would have realized that that was not my line of intention. I was merely asking you to tell me when I get to the more vile pictures. I don't have as strong of a stomach as most gentlemen," he said stiffly. "And it's __Draco__ _._ "

"Harry," Harry said tersely, and Malfoy looked at him silently for one short, breathless moment, before nodding and slowly cracking open his journal.

Nerves were already cramping his stomach up uncomfortably, and making a thin sweat break out onto his brow, but he soldiered through it as best as could be expected for having this sprung up on him so suddenly. He hadn't expected anything like this for many years to come yet, whether he allowed someone to witness the marks left over, or not. He didn't feel good, for all that he dreamed of showing his painful history to an unknown savior.

Well, he'd have to get used to someone reading his journal anyway, if things progressed the way he wanted them to. As soon as his Dad came back from wherever he and his friends disappeared to, he'd make a plea to him. Tom would stick around to make a - he grimaced, to make a stand that Lily was his and not James's, and when Harry showed them, they'd be able to arrest him on sight and take him _down_. And maybe his Mum would see how quick James was to defend his children, and they could -

No, there was no hoping for that. It was a stretch just to hope that James'd come back soon, let alone _that_.

The only sound in the room was the sound of worn pages flicking by. Harry almost resorted to the age old habit of chewing his nails, if only for the sake of giving himself something other to do than sit there waiting for Malfoy - __Draco__ to eventually stop reading. But he didn't, and instead waited for when the questions would begin about his physical health.

It surprisingly didn't take too long, considering Draco only began reading twenty minutes prior. But then, the blonde always was abnormally quick at things, reading just seemed to be one of his smaller quirks.

"Do you..." Draco began abruptly, only to pause and wet his lips anxiously. He was just at the beginning of the pictures, if Harry thought he was looking at the right one. "Do you really have a scar on your forehead, in the shape of a lightning bolt?" He asked hesitantly.

Harry silently lifted the lip of the beanie from his forehead and swept aside the messy locks that rested there. And there it was, slightly off to the left and above his eyebrow - a jagged looking lightning bolt scar. The beginning of many. He perhaps wouldn't have minded it so much, if it hadn't have symbolized the beginning of his tormented deal with the sick bastard.

Draco was even paler than normal, his skin a waxy color than the normal alabaster, and he seemed to be looking slightly green about the gills. "Everything in this journal is of the absolute truth? Nothing is exaggerated or omitted?" He asked breathlessly, eyes seeming to gain a suspicious glassy look to it.

Harry merely looked at him. "I bought that journal for the soul purpose of recording the interactions between Riddle and I, not to write dreams and fears in," he said lowly. "Everything in there is how it went, and I shit you not, it gets worse."

"How much worse can it get?" Draco asked glumly. "He already beat you and sliced you to bloody ribbons."

"Can you think of nothing worse?" Harry prodded him gently, almost __curious__ about his answer.

Draco seemed to pale even more, if that were possible, and tears began welling up in those grey eyes. Harry froze in sheer shock when the blonde launched himself at him, shoving the journal aside and wrapping his arms and legs around him like an octopus. It took him several long moments before he remembered to put his arms around the blonde's midriff, and as if acknowledging them, Draco squeezed him tightly round the neck, where he'd stuck his head and was very obviously crying quietly.

Harry didn't even know Malfoys _ _could__ cry.

He began to fidget and grimace when the evidence began to become too much, though. "I didn't mean to make you cry," he grumbled.

"I'm not crying, dolt," Draco denied stubbornly, despite sniffling and dabbing at his eyes with Harry's shirt. "My tear ducts merely experienced an overloading of salt water from the amount of years I haven't drained them, and so I took the time to conveniently drain them on you. Any relations between that and this situation are completely coincidental," he said thickly.

"Alright then," Harry sarcastically agreed. "Can you go drain them over there, then? My legs are cramping up under your fat arse."

"My arse is just as -" Draco cut himself off as abruptly as he'd begun to speak. "Wait, when he - when you two had... Did he, er, __do__ you? Or did you do him?" He asked tentatively, as if trying to measure how badly his words would set him off and attempting to prevent it.

It almost annoyed him, if it didn't show how much the blonde cared.

"I was on the bottom, yes," Harry said, as calmly and patiently as he could. "I was only fourteen when he started touching me. I wasn't matured enough to fuck him yet, though, and he was domineering enough to not want to be on the bottom. Ever. But that doesn't mean he didn't want me to do things to him, he just wanted to command what I did."

"How the bloody hell can you just say it like that?" Draco asked, aghast. "Aren't you traumatized? Broken? A shell of yourself and so on and so forth? I've heard of many stories about people who are raped and just completely give up on life, and yet here you are! Documenting everything and even comforting __me__ about __your__ experiences! How on earth do you do it?!"

Harry hesitated a moment, thinking grimly about what he actually did do that held back the pain. Not many good things, apparently, he realized, all too glumly. "I guess I just control the things I can, because when I don't, I feel like things are spiraling out of control," he reluctantly admitted. "I control what I eat, when I sleep, what I say and what I do. I've learned to switch off when things become too much, or else I draw or paint to get everything back into focus. Sometimes I run, and sometimes I just sit still and just... blank out."

Draco stared at him, and Harry couldn't help but think that the blonde was almost afraid of him. "Almost all of those things are bad, Harry," he said softly. "You've most likely developed an eating disorder, or an obsessive compulsive problem. When I said that there are horror stories out there about being raped, these things were part of it. It's partly what drove them all mad, because sometimes they couldn't do what they needed to feel balanced in time."

"Not much I can do until Dad comes back, I'm afraid," Harry muttered. "I just have to hang on long enough for them to get back. I've made sure the extra copies of my journal are in places where only they'd know to look, so if I... If I end up kicking the bucket, they'll be able to put Tom behind bars."

"You won't die," Draco said firmly, and finally climbed off of Harry's numb lap to seat himself back on the bed, as if determined to get to the bottom of Harry's issues. "Because I won't let you. You're still my friend, even if we fought like cats and dogs these last few years. You still seem to have quite a bit of life about you, anyway. You'd live on even if I weren't here to help you."

"If you're sure," Harry said softly, and Draco nodded once, firmly. "But in case I don't make it, I want you to take one of them. One of the journals. In case he gets it all out of me and destroys them before they can be discovered."

"Point me in the direction of one, and I'll take it with me tonight," Draco murmured, and Harry did so, quietly gathering the stack so he wouldn't distract Draco from his reading.


	2. Chapter 2

****WARNING:**** ** **References to**** ** **Rape, Foul language, Fighting, Detailed RAPE, Threats, Blowjob, Anal Fingering, Rimming.****

 ** **Please don't read if triggered by the previously mentioned!****

 ** **Other than that, enjoy. Thank you for reading, leaving a Kudos and commenting! They're always welcome! And don't worry, Fenrir will be coming in soon, everything's about to come to a head. Just where Fenrir always is.****

 ** **-oOoOoOo-****

 ** **Chapter**** ****Two**** ** **  
The Freedom Of The Voice****

"He'll be here when you two get back from school, so please don't be late and __please,__ for the love of God, __don't__ get into any more trouble than you already do, alright?" Lily said, giving Harry an especially pointed look that he so very pointedly ignored. She sighed and dropped a gentle kiss to Henry's scrunched up forehead as she made her way round the bench. "I'll need you to get the roast on as soon as you open the door, Harry love. You know your way around the kitchen the most out of the two of you, and frankly, you're a far better cook than I am," she said satirically, a self-deprecating smile quirking her lips.

"More like you don't want Henry giving him food poisoning," Harry commented wryly, even as his stomach churned and clenched nervously in his belly - threatening to rebel against the protein bar digesting there. His signature beanie already atop his head and breakfast over with, Harry was left to fiddle with his collection of bracelets almost lazily. He'd had to be readier a lot earlier today than on Monday, as Lily wasn't taking them to school this morning and they had to walk the twenty minutes to school; she'd been called in to work a lot earlier than normal, and she couldn't spare them any time for a lift - highly important business, she'd said. He thought that was okay. Henry obviously didn't.

Lily gave him a tired, bemused look, just as Henry grumbled nastily under his breath and glared around blearily. The morning life didn't suit them like it seemed to Harry and James, a noticeable difference that split them right down the middle. Harry could get up at any time of the morning and just stay awake until any time of the night, a morning and night owl, as Lily used to grumble when he'd been younger. He'd used to wake his parents in the very early morning by jumping on them; a human alarm clock. While Henry just slept all the time; through his many alarms, apparently in class, when he got home from school, and sometimes even through dinner.

If they didn't know any better, they'd have thought Henry identified with a Sloth.

"I'm not stupid enough to eat anything he touches, especially anything pasta related," Harry told her, smirking as Henry almost planted his face in his cereal bowl and muttered something insulting under his breath. His cheeks were a ruddy red, Harry noted smugly.

Harry wouldn't touch anything Henry made; the boy could blacken __water__ without trying. The last time he'd cooked, Lily and James had ended up sick for one very, very long week. Harry hadn't been game to try even a little bit of the gloopy, yucky, thick mess of squished pasta and slightly charred, __lumpy__ tomato sauce. He'd most definitely gone without that night, and he'd been all the better for it.

Even though he'd caught sympathy sickness for their parents the next day, and ended up staying home with them to tend to their every need. Henry hadn't been able to try his hand at cooking again, Harry wouldn't let him - although Lily seemed to be able to forget about that horrible time at will, a regrettable trait, as Harry certainly couldn't. Neither did James, although he seemed to find it funny now that he wasn't sick anymore.

Lily shuddered and nodded grimly in remembrance, even as her fingers deftly spun a work of sophisticated art with her long auburn hair. Harry exhaled slowly, swallowing thickly over the hard lump in his throat, and watched her pin her hair up into one of her elegant buns.

Harry loved watching her do her morning routine - another thing Henry disliked, as her attention wasn't focused on him and was therefore, a very bad thing. But there was something just so elegant in watching her twist her hair this way and that, using methods that looked like they wouldn't do anything but make the most hideous tangle, but instead made the most beautiful styles. He always used to sit by her when he was really little and watch her, and she'd always smiled radiantly and patted him affectionately on the cheek.

She didn't do anything of the sort now, not since James had left them - but it was okay. He loved his mother dearly, even if she didn't have nearly as much time for him as she does for Henry. He understood her need to have someone to lean on, even if it almost buried him in the ground under the weight each time. He wouldn't tell her that, though. James had told him to be the man of the house when he'd gone, and that's what he'd be.

"So how long is he staying for this time?" Harry asked, almost nonchalantly. He averted his eyes when Lily tried to meet his gaze; refusing to let her see the fear lurking there - the anger that was so far quietly simmering under a mask of restraint and control perfected over the years.

 _ _No stress, no pain - no talking. If you don't feel it, you don't show it.__

Lily hummed as she sorted herself out, gathering her morning coffee and take-home paperwork, and shuffling the latter package into her work bag. "Oh - er, I think he's just staying the one night, Love," she said absently, frowning lightly and thumbing through one of the green packets in the folder. She paused on a page and read it with a tense frown. "Something about a high-profile case he needs to research for, or something of the sort... Said he's got something big planned for all of us, and he needs time to work through it. But I'm not too certain about that, I could barely understand him on the telephone last night, he'd been so excited."

 _ _He just wants a quick fuck and a fast get-away,__ a voice muttered softly in the back of his mind. _ _I'm sure he won't hurt us too badly in one night. We've survived worse whilst under his thumb for longer...__

"Oh, that's just great," Harry uttered under his breath, moodily picking at his nails. Henry nodded along glumly.

"Uh huh," said his Mum vaguely, in one of her dreamy, chirpy tones that told him how focused she was on her work. "He promised he'd take us all out for a celebratory dinner when he finishes his project, and that he'd announce his plans on that night. But I think he's finally planning on moving in!" She said ardently. "Isn't that great?"

 _ _Even fucking better, Mum. Really, good for fucking you,__ Harry snapped inwardly, and locked his jaw lest he accidentally say that right to her face. __She deserves happiness,__ he reminded himself sharply.

 _ _But that's constant access to our room - to our__ _bed!_ The voice hissed angrily, a colorless cloud of rage building fast and thick in his temples. Harry winced at the heavy feeling. _ _We must get a lock, something to keep that beast out until we learn to defend ourself!__

Harry felt like he'd swallowed a bloody watermelon when he smiled at her, but he did so dutifully when she looked at him so happily - as if her dreams were finally coming true after so long. And who knew, they probably were. Tom could be very debonair on occasion. "Yeah, Mum," he said blithely. "That _ _is__ great. But don't get your hopes up, just in case it's something else."

Lily beamed beatifically, almost too brightly as she stuffed her work back in her bag. "I'll try not to, but I make no promises!" She sang giddily, snapping her work bag shut and flouncing off with a grand sweep of her overcoat, dropping one last kiss on Henry's head and sliding a hand over Harry's shoulder. "Wish me luck, my darling babies! Jekovsky and Tiana's in for the late shift, and I'm almost late for a very important date with my planner!"

"Don't have too much fun, you're liable to never come back!" Harry called after her, and smiled softly when he heard her call one last laughing goodbye back.

" _ _'Don't have too much fun, you're liable to never come back,'__ " Henry mocked him belligerently, scoffing scornfully. "God's sake, Harry, you're such a fucking arse-kisser."

"Don't even start, Henry, I could go on for __hours__ about all the things you say to Tom," Harry said drolly, smiling sharply. " _ _'Tom, Tom! Can you help me with my homework, pretty please? You're just so much smarter than me, and I can't remember anything!'__ _"_ He mimicked him in a higher voice, ending his little act with kissing noises that had the tips of Henry's ears flushing pink.

"Shut up, Harry!"

 ** **-oOoOoOo-****

"So he's coming tonight, then? Do you know when?" Draco asked, thankfully uttering the words under his breath. Ron and Hermione were still in close quarters, though they were pretending to give him - _them_ , the cold shoulder. His behavior on Monday was still very unappreciated, and having Draco Malfoy so close to him, whispering words they couldn't make out into his ear didn't help any. Hermione always glanced at them when she thought they weren't looking - they always were, and it made things awkward having her avert her eyes as if stung by something.

Ron just grumbled and kept his head down.

"He's staying just the one night," Harry told him bitterly, and lightened the grip on his charcoal pencil when it threatened to snap under his fingers. It left a horribly thick line in the patchwork of lightly shaded eyes, but it didn't look bad enough to warrant him tearing it up. He ripped the page out and screwed the paper up into a ball anyway. "Apparently he's got some pretty big news planned for us all, and he just can't wait to share it. Can't imagine what it could be, though. Could be __anything__ with him," he sneered.

"You cannot be serious," Draco hissed, almost beside himself with agitation and tension. He kept it well under wraps though, when under the watchful eyes of Hermione, Ron and Professor Sinistra. Even with his mind still haunted by images of Harry's abuse, he still managed to think of something creative enough to get him a passing grade. Harry commended him.

"That was sarcasm, Malfoy," Harry snorted, and rolled his eyes when the blonde glared at him reproachfully. "If anything, he's probably moving in. They've been together for four and a half years, and engaged for two of them, of course he's finally gonna make the last step and move in. It's only natural, after all," he sighed.

"How will you cope with him living under the same roof as you?" Draco whispered plaintively, sharp eyebrows furrowed in concern. "He'll have -"

"Constant access to my room, I know," Harry broke in sourly, to Draco's anticipated annoyance at being cut off. "But I can't do anything about it. I can't lock my door to keep him out, he'd only do something to Mum in retaliation, and I can't have that. I won't let him."

"So you're fucked, either way?" Draco asked, staggered. "But can't you do something - get him to stop, some way?"

Harry slowly turned his head, and glared very, very darkly at the blonde, whom flushed a very bright pink and ducked his head at the highly unimpressed look. "If it were so fucking easy, I'd have stopped him before he ever started," he said coldly. "As it is, all I can do is lay down passively and let him do what he wants."

"You can't have thought of __everything.__ Perhaps you've missed something," the blonde murmured thoughtfully, to Harry's ire. "What of your gift? You have to have one to attend this school. And don't even try to tell me about how adaptable you are to your enemies, I __know__ those rumors are false."

"Don't have one," Harry muttered impatiently. "Dumbledore just seems to think I fit in here."

"Then you have an ability, but you haven't discovered it yet," Draco told him wisely, just a hint of arrogance in the drawling tones. Harry looked at him, surprised, and the blonde sneered. " _Please,_ the Headmaster may be senile in his old age, but he hasn't lost touch with his own gift. Even I trust his instincts to an extent, fixed as they may seem."

"You really think I have an element?" Harry softly asked.

"I'm certain of it," Draco told him in that normal self-assured, cocky, arrogant drawl. Harry's lips quirked in a smile, seeing the attempt to cheer him as it was. "It might not have appeared in Elementary school, but I'm sure that it's only because you haven't required it to. It could very well be an Active element, and need only be brought the surface by a highly specific trigger," the blonde said in a knowledgeable tone.

"And what's your ability?"

"Duplication," Draco drawled, in a voice of pure bragging. "I can duplicate __anything__ I wish by just a thought. Say, if I wished to leave this room, I would sneak out and leave a copy of myself in place, complete with a copy of the stationary I originally appeared with. It comes in terribly handy when I most need it, such as those horribly long, __boring__ galas my mother throws every month, for some charity or other. I dutifully make my appearance, as a clone of myself in the most fetching robes Mother had commissioned for me."

Harry merely looked at him for a moment. "And you didn't think of this is a solution for my problem, __why?__ _"_ He demanded angrily, and scowled when he accidentally snapped the charcoal pencil clean through the middle.

Draco looked at the broken piece of charcoal warily. "Because my training only goes so far as to duplicate at a short distance, and for it to last merely an hour. Some things I can even feel, if my clone is touched in the wrong way," he informed him calmly. "It would not work for you, simply because it sounds convenient."

"You made it out to be!" Harry snapped at him, feeling more than a little cheated at having salvation handed to him in the shape of the lean blonde, and then utterly ripped out of his grip before he could take it. "I thought -"

"Well you thought wrong," Draco told him icily, grey eyes flashing angrily. "I cannot help you in this aspect. I cannot get in the middle of something so violent, and so dangerous to my own well-being and safety, and I utterly refuse to put my life in jeopardy. I apologize, Harry, but I cannot gift you and your family with a golden ticket out of Hell. I'm sorry."

The uncontrollable rage that threatened to free itself from his carefully drafted barriers slowly deflated. Harry stared down at the mangled charcoal pencil on his desk. "I didn't expect you to suddenly get us out of there, Draco," he said quietly, numbly. "It was irrational of me to even think you could help put __Him__ behind bars, but I'd hoped you would try. I'm sorry for involving you, and giving you no doubt __countless__ amounts of nightmares. You should forget about everything - forget about me."

"Don't be stupid, Potter," Draco snapped hotly. "I might not be -"

"Shut up, Malfoy. Just shut up," Harry said wearily, and the blonde did so with an uncouth, loud smack of his jaw.

 _ **-oOoOoOo-**_

"So, Harry, why is Malfoy suddenly hanging around you? I thought you were at an endless war with each other," said Hermione in that tactfully detached way, delicately unfolding the wrapping from her neatly squared sandwich.

"He was just curious about how my life went on without all his shit crowding it all the time," Harry answered, getting out his own lunch. "It's okay, he won't be hanging round us anytime soon. Told him to fuck off in Art," he assured them, though it was an empty consolation. Even though it had been unfair, he just couldn't put his heart into actually hating the blonde - and it showed in his words. It wasn't his fault, and to think it was, was pure idiocy.

"Yeah, well it certainly seemed like it with you two being all __buddy-buddy__ with each other," Ron muttered darkly, azure eyes glowering down at his mangled turkey sandwich. "What'd he whisper to you about all lesson that you can't talk to __me__ about? I've been friends with you longer than that prat ever has."

 _ _He's jealous of the blonde fool for having our attention, when he's the one giving us the silent treatment,__ the rapidly becoming familiar voice sneered hatefully. _ _Pathetic, bumbling idiot. He's always been jealous of us for having such a rich family, hasn't he? Little does he know about what goes on behind closed doors... Perhaps we should tell him, for this simple reason alone.__

 _ _But we won't, because then we'd lose his friendship,__ Harry told it pointedly.

"Nothing," Harry mumbled. "Nothing at all."

Hermione shot him a disbelieving look. "You actually think we're going to believe that?" She asked incredulously. "Either you don't put enough stock behind our characters, or you really think we don't care. Draco Malfoy, your biggest rival, doesn't just sequester you away from us and talk to you all class for _ _nothing!__ Does this have anything to do with what you wouldn't tell us about on Monday?"

Icy fear clutched at his innards like serrated, curled claws, but he let none of it show. If he told the two of them, they'd never let it go - they'd forever see him as a victim. Their happy memories forever stained with thoughts of how he'd lied to them when they asked after his health, how he'd been beaten and raped under their very noses, and they hadn't done a thing to stop it. The guilt alone would tear a rift in their friendship, but the fear... The fear that they'd react in some wrong way would rip them apart completely.

They were all the support he had left, and if they ignored him now... He didn't know what he'd do.

"Vaguely," he answered bluntly.

Hermione stared at him in shock, and Ron's face slowly began to work up to the same mottled shade of red atop his head.

"What on earth can you talk to that imbecile about that you can't talk to us?" She asked shrilly, a __tad__ bit upset.

"I can't tell you," Harry said blankly, hurriedly icing his mind over with a thick nothingness before the anger and helplessness could break free. The voice was muffled behind the barrier, but it echoed angrily in his mind. "I'll lose you if I do -"

"You'll never bloody lose us, Harry, but push us away is what you'll do," Ron blustered, outraged. "What the fuck have we ever done to make you think we'd leave you? We've always been at your side - __on__ your side of things when _ _everyone__ started having a go at you here for having no fucking abilities! Why the fuck would we hang out with an untalented, selfish, arrogant little prick like you if we didn't __love you for it?"__

 _Untalented, selfish, arrogant little prick..._

The words branded themselves into his mind like a cow prod, meshing with the other horrible words riddled there that Tom had hissed into his ears of an 'eventful' night. His throat clogged with too many emotions - the anger at finally having no one at his back, and his eyes burned with shame. He lowered his head before they could see the tears.

 _ _No stress, no pain, no talking. If you don't feel it, you don't show it.__

"Ron," said Hermione quietly. "I think you went too far..."

"No, I bloody well didn't," Ron snarled. "I'm sick of him doing this! Icing us out when we need him to be our friend!" He exclaimed, thoroughly exasperated and fed up. "If yelling at him - _ _poking him with a fucking stick__ gets the message through, then so be it! He shouldn't be so self-centered all the damn time when there's two other people in this friendship! He's gotta make room for us if he wants us to be his friends, if not, he can fuck right off!"

Harry shoved himself back from the table before he could hear what Hermione had to say. It was way past the time for him to go. The blind rage was already scratching at the walls he'd conjured in his mind - and that wall was already egg-shell thin and cracking under the enormous weight of it all. It wouldn't be long before it all collapsed.

"Where the fuck do you - _ _think you're going, Potter? Off to tell Mummy and Daddy about what little old Tom Riddle does to you at night? Oh, but you wouldn't, would you? You belong to me, and__ only me. _ _I say what you do, and you__ will not _ _walk away from me. Nor will you tell a living soul of what I do to you – what you__ _want_ _ _me to do."__

Harry's throat closed in tight on a yell.

 _ _No! It's not Him, Harry! He's not here!__ The voice yelled frantically over his panicked panting. _ _Breathe - it's__ _not Him!_ _ _It's our friend, it's__ _Ron_ _ _right there!__

Harry yelled wordlessly when huge, calloused hands snagged at his arm and jerked him back angrily, and in a blind, hazy fog of panic, Harry swung a fist at where he hoped the face of Tom was. Blood rushed thick and fast in his veins, his heart thundering in his hair and nails, and his breath turning to stone in his lungs. It was too much. _ _He__ was here! __He__ was going to tell everyone what a dirty, disgusting boy he was, for letting his future Step-Father fuck him at all hours of the night. For touching him so inappropriately. For letting the man do things to him that no one ever would or _ _should have__ _._

 _ _It's not him!__ The voice yelled once more.

He choked on a scream – long, lanky, ropy arms had snapped around his waist, locking him in close to a body he didn't want pressed anywhere on him. He struggled fiercely against their hold, raining hits down on the exposed fragile, freckled wrists and fingers. The knuckles turned a deathly white and the skin around it became splashed and mottled with red from his fists. "Let me - _ _go!__ Let me go, damn it!" He raged.

"Not 'til you - calm the fuck - __down!"__ Ron bellowed in his ear, grunting harshly when Harry's nails bit into his forearms like little teeth, digging in little crescent wounds and just breaking the skin to allow blood through. "Fuck's sake, Harry! CALM DOWN!" The redhead roared, giving Harry a violent shake that admittedly had Harry's teeth clenching back a screech of pain.

"Let me go and I fucking will!" Harry yelled back, baring his teeth in an angry snarl that _no one_ could mistake. He was a finely disguised mess of pain - his back riddled with a network of flames that tore into his spine like little demons, the welts and bruises there feeling as if they were getting bigger and deeper with each second Ron bore down on them. But did anyone notice? Well, probably only Draco would, since the fucking idiot knew about it.

Everyone was watching the struggle at this point, though Harry couldn't see them – he could only feel and see the long freckled arms holding him down and the heavy torso pressing down on his back. He growled when those arms tightened even further - almost bending his ribs inward to strike his heart or lungs. As it was he could barely breathe, and with a last ditch effort to get free, he shucked his elbow back sharply, hoping to catch a rib or two and _ _make__ him loosen his hold, but Ron merely hissed painfully in his ear and swore vividly.

He wasn't letting go anytime soon.

"Just let me go, Ron," Harry breathed wearily, his exhaustion punctuated by the heavy push-pull of his chest, and the way his tense body became as limp as a wet noodle in the strong hold. He didn't want to hurt anyone – least of all Hermione and Ron, but by the downward way things were going, that's what was going to happen.

Hell, he already __had__ hurt Ron.

"Are you calm enough now?" Ron muttered, and Harry felt more than heard the concern in the redhead's voice. The steel bands around Harry's body were relaxing, hugging him now more than restraining him. His ribs almost creaked with relief as the pressure was taken off of them.

Harry shamefacedly nodded.

But Ron didn't let him go.

"Good. Now you can tell me what the fuck is so important that only Malfoy can know about it," the redhead growled. "Don't skip out on anything, either. I'll know it if you do."

 _ _I'll kill him,__ the voice, that was really beginning to sound like a far more emotional Harry, proclaimed. _ _I'll kill his__ _ _ungrateful, far too suspecting, strategic, annoying little arse and bury him in flames! Why should we tell him anything for that reason; just because he's jealous of a blonde idiot! Ha! This would be a good fucking time to teach him that patience is a virtue, and that he's very sorely lacking. Just imagine his face if we did! It would be absolutely priceless.__

 _ _And absolutely pointless,__ Harry whispered back to it, and the voice turned uneasily in his mind, as if it were actually unsure that he should be paying it any attention. _ _You obviously know Ron just as well as I do, and you obviously know that it wouldn't work. He's better the way he is now; an impatient hothead. Ronald Bilius Weasley.__

 _ _It'd still be funny,__ the voice grumbled.

"Well?" Ron prompted him impatiently.

"Not here, Ron," Harry said tersely, not willing to make the effort to consciously react to the disturbing voice of his non-existent twin. "Please, can't you just wait until I'm ready to tell you?"

Ron's arms tightened to a painful point once more, and Harry choked on a curse as his lungs creaked again and his back _burned_. "Like you were ready to tell _ _Malfoy__ before us?"The redhead seethed. "I think not, Harry. You'll tell me now."

"Release him, Weasley," a voice commanded, and everything stopped.

Ron's head snapped to the side to where Harry suspected the real Malfoy stood, just as slim, cool hands touched his wrists and began prying at the redhead's arms with an almost detached fashion. Harry eyed the figure closely. It was easy to tell it was a clone; it had only a touch of the spunk the real Malfoy had, and it didn't revel in causing Ron pain. Those grey eyes were cool and hard as they worked Ron's grip loose, not even a hint of amusement flickering in those eyes at seeing the slightly bleeding crescent wounds Harry left behind on those forearms.

"You hurt others with your boorish manners, Weasley, but this takes it to a far different level," said Draco pompously, coolly. Harry could imagine how red Ron's face must be, though he was too busy rubbing at his raw torso to look. Hermione edged around him worriedly, her hands wringing nervously in the deafening silence. "At least when others interact with you, they're able to _ _breathe__ their way through the stupidity that stumbles from your mouth. Poor Harry has to deal with your stupidity on a daily basis, whilst apparently, also being attacked. Although, at least I was here to pry you apart this time, so that he may finally __breathe__ in your suffocating presence."

Ron released him so fast, Harry was almost shoved forward from the sheer force of it. He sucked in a deep invigorating breath, despite it grating on his ribs like he'd swallowed gravel. Ron skulked close behind him, but was thankfully not close enough to touch him. He couldn't handle any physical contact from him right now.

 _ _Or from anyone,__ the voice murmured bitterly.

"What the fuck do you think you know about us?" Ron snarled awkwardly at the blonde. "You've got your head so far up your arse to notice what goes on in other peoples' lives, let alone ours!"

"Good boy," Draco mocked, blatantly ignoring Ron's stabbing words. "Now stay. I hardly think Harry needs any more of your particular brutish excitement bearing down on him again. You almost snapped him in two, I should think!"

"I'm not that easy to break," Harry snapped, and immediately hated how winded he sounded. _Wow_ , his ribs really hurt.

"No, I suppose you aren't," Draco reluctantly conceded. "But perhaps under the pressure you are now, in the long run you will. Break, that is. Perhaps you should consider their request and take up their support, before the inevitable snap occurs and leaves you in tatters," the blonde advised, almost nonchalantly.

"No," Harry said tightly. Hermione made an annoyed sound beside him.

"If you don't tell them, I will," said the blonde stiffly.

Harry glared murderously, eyes glowing bright like emerald embers behind his spectacles. "You wouldn't __dare__ ," he spat.

 _ _Oh, he would dare,__ the voice whispered tensely. __And he will. We have no other choice but to tell them ourself, and we'll have to tell them everything. He won't let us get away with half-arsed attempts and omitting certain truths. We can't let him tell them about our experiences, Harry. We have to do it.__

Draco drew himself up to his full height, raising a contemptuous, angular eyebrow in derision. "Just you try me, Harry," he drawled. "I may not be able to help protect you and yours, but I am capable of getting the help you need. Whether you deem it necessary, or not."

Harry shut his eyes tightly, as if to ward off the anxiety slowly creeping up on him once more. Or maybe to wave off the warnings and excuses flinging themselves at him _ _not__ to do this. "Fine," he said tightly, and tilted his head in Hermione and Ron's direction. They shuffled about uncomfortably. "Be at my house by six tomorrow evening."

 _"_ _ _I'll__ be the one bringing the treats, thank you very much," said Draco pompously. "Can't trust any of you to get the right things, you all have such disgraceful, __boring__ palettes, and Malfoys always have the best. And I suppose we'll all be sleeping at yours, too, Harry. But __I__ get the bed. No Malfoy has ever slept on any floor, for _ _any__ reason. And we don't share, either."

Harry didn't know what to think.

 ** **-oOoOoOo-****

Harry led the slow path way to their house, feet like lead and stomach twisting and churning like worms in a can. Henry was plodding along silently behind him, not saying anything, just quietly observing him - and wasn't that nerve-wracking? It was almost like he knew what was going to happen as soon as they opened the door. But it couldn't be possible; he'd kept everything hush-hush, and he knew Tom wouldn't let anyone know. Let alone _ _Henry,__ the Big Mouth of the family.

"What was that at lunch today, Harry?"

The words were said so quietly, Harry had to stop and look at his little brother to register them. And that was only because they were written so clearly on his face - such concern was precious to him. His heart softened just that little bit. "Nothing," he said. "Just a little tiff with Ron and Hermione about some secret stuff. Don't worry about it."

"But he __hurt__ you!" Henry blurted out, as if he the words were forcing themselves out. "How can you just stand there like nothing happened? You're probably bruising up already! If one of my friends did that to me, I'd unfriend them and tell 'em to fuck off!"

"It isn't as simple as that, Hen," Harry murmured, a small smile pulling at the corners of his mouth when Henry scowled. "You'll understand a bit more when you're grown up a bit. Hormones can be good, and they can be bad, too. Everyone has their off-days. Ron just had his today, and I wasn't up for it."

"But he still hurt you," Henry said obstinately. "And I can't forgive that. I don't want him anywhere near you, or the house ever again! I'll whup his arse so hard he'll be tasting the jug cord for years if he even tries it!"

"You know he's coming over tomorrow, right?" Harry asked him dryly, smirking when Henry mustered up a mighty scowl and growled. He hurried to speak before the boy could spit out some of his creative curses. "He, Hermione and Draco are staying the night. We've all been working out our differences over the past couple of days, and decided tomorrow night would be a good night to lay everything out on the table. So to speak, anyway. A sleep over is a good way to put rivalries to rest," he said, smiling softly.

Henry exhaled harshly and stomped ahead, but Harry could tell he wasn't __really__ angry. "Why can't you just move out already and get your own house, then I wouldn't have to put up with geeky bush rats, awkward weasels and stupid ferrets!" He mockingly mourned. "Oh, if only you had a life! Then things wouldn't be so bad!"

"Oi! Shut up, you," Harry said, snorting in amusement. "We're not all that bad! And where would you be if your amazing big brother weren't around to help you? You'd be all alone in a big house with Mum and Tom, and all their romping round the place!"

Henry grimaced. "Please refrain from dirtying my mind with such images," he said grimly, cringing and shivering so hard his bag almost slipped from his shoulders. "I only _ _just__ recently convinced myself that that wasn't happening. Our house has never had anything _ _of that sort__ in it."

 _If only you knew._

"Oh, but Henry," Harry simpered, catching up with one leap of his long legs and throwing an arm over his brother's maturing shoulders. "Mum and Dad had been doing all that stuff for years before that! You've even seen them - that one time the Tooth Fairy visited you when you were about eight? I believe you caught them 'wrestling' in bed!"

The blood drained out of Henry's face so quickly, Harry almost readied himself to catch his fainting body. "You mean they weren't wrestling?" He asked breathlessly, disgust and horror tingeing his voice.

 _ _Does anyone ever just wrestle in bed?__ The voice murmured, amused.

Harry gave his shoulder a pat, attempting and failing extremely badly at keeping the smirk from his face. "I never had the displeasure of catching them in the act like you, bud," he began faux comfortingly. "But if I ever need a horrible image implanted in my mind, I know just where to go."

"I thought they'd been wrestling... They said they were..." Henry whispered, horrified and a bit green about the gills. "Oh, I think I'm gonna be sick!"

Harry smiled cheerily and gestured to the garden they were just passing. "There's a bush just there, go on and take a hurl - I'll hold back your pretty, long locks."

Henry groaned and warbled pathetically. "Oh, fuck off, Harry," he croaked. "You did this to me. I could've lived without knowing all that shit..."

"I wasn't the one running around, barging into peoples rooms at all hours of the morning," Harry teased. "You're the one that did that, and you deserved the eyeful you got of Mum and Dad."

"It changed me," Henry muttered in disgust. Harry glanced down at him with a grin. "Even then, on a baser level, I think I knew what they'd been doing. I'd been repressing it though. Cooties and all that."

Harry chuckled. "You were shockingly into the prevention of cootie infections," he remembered fondly. "That poor girl, Jessie. I think I remember you spraying her with the garden hose when she tried to peck you."

"She had warts on her warts! I didn't want any part of that!" Henry exclaimed.

Harry couldn't help but smirk. "She still likes you, you know. Keeps a photo of you in her locker at school," he informed him.

"And how do you know that?" Henry asked suspiciously, peering up at him from under his beanie. "You the one that gave her it?"

Harry shrugged indifferently. "I could be. But I'm not," he hurried to say, when Henry's mouth flew open in betrayed shock. "Hermione knows a girl who's seen it. Says she kisses it every time she goes to one of your classes," he said, grimacing. He shuddered. "Good luck with that, by the way. Stalkers are never fun."

"I suppose I'll just have her locker hosed out then," Henry muttered, lips pursed and eyebrows furrowed thoughtfully.

Harry looked down at him in amusement, a little bit proud that he was planning his first prank with his older brother. "And how will you manage that, then?" He drawled.

"Dennis Creevey."

Harry cringed and shook his head. "I wouldn't use him, he can't control himself enough to fit the job," he very quickly said, to Henry's befuddlement. "If you want to flood out someone's locker, you have to go Old School. Sneak out of class and go into one of the Janitors closets, they have rolls and rolls of hoses that you can hook up to the drinking fountains. The rest is history."

"You've done this before, then?" Henry asked curiously, if a bit surprised.

Harry smirked playfully, something he hadn't done in what felt like years – it probably had been years, actually. He was fairly enjoying this conversation, as he and Henry didn't often get along in any way, and it was somewhat pleasing to the senses not to be attacked all day long at home. At least he'd have one last laugh before shit hit the fan.

"You didn't really expect the eldest son of James Potter, and the first of the second generation of the Marauders, to just sit quietly in school like a good little boy, did you?" He asked slyly, and Henry immediately shook his head in dumbfounded awe. "I was good at pranking people, like Prongs, but my specialty was doing all the big stuff. I was so good, I didn't even get caught! Did you ever hear about __The Incident__ in the Great Hall?"

 _ _He probably hasn't,__ the ever-present voice murmured, bored. __It may have been big, and we may have been indirectly labeled Hogwarts' most notorious student in a century for it, but it wasn't so spectacular to have been passed down to the younger generations.__

"You did __that?__ " Henry gasped. "Holy shit, Harry! That prank was the most extravagantly created and excellently executed in an entire __century__ _,_ it even topped Uncle Sirius and Remus's work back in their heyday! Everyone's been going on about that for ages, thinking that the Weasley twins must've done it, but even the Weasley twins are mystified about it! And then it turns out that you, the school's quietest, most unsuspecting guy, did it! Oh, shit, Uncle Sirius is going to be _ _so__ pissed!" He enthused exuberantly, practically jerking Harry up and down by his shoulders from bouncing on the balls of his feet.

 _ _Or, maybe it was,__ said the voice quickly. __We can't be right all the time...__

"I sure did," Harry said with a massive, mischievous grin. "But not without a lot of hard work and dedication, though! Took me all blimming night long to do it, especially with Filch walking round the place with that torch – and that stupid cat of his. I ended up having to lock it in one of the cleaning closets nearby, because the bloody thing had gotten in the paint and tracked paw prints all over my work," he muttered with a remembered feeling of annoyance. Henry laughed.

"So, uh, yeah, now that you know, just tell me if you need help with anything, and I'll help you," he added in with a grin. "And I mean with __anything__ _._ You need me, I'll be there." __Always, little brother.__

 _ _He knows that,__ the voice softly said. __That's why he's so comfortable at home, even with Tom there. Because he knows that even if Mum and Dad had split, he'll always have us with him.__

And Harry realized that for himself when he caught the whisper, _"I have the coolest brother ever..."_ over the slight howl of the wind around them.

Harry couldn't help the beaming smile that spread over his face the rest of the way home, even when the oppressive sight of their house tipped into view and squashed any good feelings left in the air between him and his little brother. Tom's sleek silver car was nestled on the side of the garage James's car used to occupy. His smile dimmed just a touch.

"Mum said you have to get the roast on, Harry," Henry murmured, and in a brief show of unusual discomfort, slid out from under Harry's outstretched arm and trudged off across the lawn.

 _ _He's effected by Tom's influence, too,__ the voice whispered. __No matter how much we want to hide it from them, they'll always be effected by it – and they won't know why.__

 _ _I can't tell them,__ Harry whispered back, feeling the helplessness rolling in thick and strong in his throat. _ _If there's one thing I can protect them from, it's from the reality of Tom's malevolence. I won't do it to them – they deserve so much more...__

 _ _Even if we pay the price?__ The voice asked, so quietly Harry almost couldn't hear it – even though it was in his mind.

 _ _Even if we pay the price,__ Harry agreed gently, solemnly.

"Harry! You'll catch your death out there!"

Harry blinked and fought the urge to turn around and run – he even stiffened his legs to do so, until he remembered that Henry was already inside, and he couldn't leave him alone with the beast. The tall, slender figure of Tom was standing in the doorway, inky haired head tilted to the side in curiosity. Those fathomless, sharp dark eyes swept his own figure like cold fingers, and the hair at the back of his neck prickled with awareness.

There was the look of hunger in those depths.

"Come inside!" Tom commanded, moving himself stiffly to the side to make room for him.

He really didn't want to.

"Harry!" Tom barked, an edge of warning creeping into the deep, sophisticated tones. "I won't ask you again!" __Your punishment will be worse than you can ever imagine if I have to. Don't force my hand.__

Harry struggled to swallow a mouthful of knives as he made his way very stiffly to his house. He ignored the sharp, angry eyes that bore into the side of his face like meat hooks attempting to claw him in, and shuffled past the foreboding, muscular form. The door snicked shut behind them, effectively shutting out the sun and safety. He was trapped now. He exhaled silently in the hallway when he felt a hand sweep across his rear possessively, and a pair of dry lips brush his cheek. He was very quickly stopped by Tom's other hand, and almost cradled to that muscular chest. If it weren't for the hands that groped him jealously, and the hardness he could feel pressed against his waist.

Dry, searching lips found his ear, and briefly opened to allow the hot tongue that nestled behind glimmering white teeth to swipe at the shell of his ear. He quivered, but not with arousal. "Don't ignore me again, Harry," Tom whispered tightly. "I was most __displeased__ when you tried it. You will have to be punished yet again if you do not wish to behave."

"Please don't," Harry said bravely. "Everyone's beginning to suspect -"

He hurriedly cut himself off to avoid making a noise of pain, and braced himself for more pain as those hands squeezed him rather __tightly__ _._ He peered at the two doorways on either side of the hall, just in case Henry was watching them, and relaxed very slightly when he spotted hide nor hair of his little brother. Tom was angry. Very, very, __very__ angry. And he always did stupid things when he was angry.

"They can be dealt with later," said Tom stiffly, and Harry sucked in a nervous breath as those lips pressed none too gently against his neck. Tom wasn't averse to biting, and those teeth were unnaturally sharp. "Your main priority is my happiness and satisfaction, and your mother can only sate me so much, so many times. I tire of her whimsical needs and capricious ways, I need a much younger body, and of the same gender. I need your body," he muttered huskily.

"Then have me," Harry whispered tightly, gritting his teeth to stop the noises of anger from falling past his lips as Tom entwined his arms round him even more, and pressed more kisses to his neck. He was very thoroughly ensconced in the arms of the enemy. "But not here – not now. Henry's here and Mum will be home soon. They'll know what's going on if you take me now."

"I've already thought of that, dearest," Tom murmured darkly, running a long-fingered hand across Harry's chest. "And I believe I've missed the sight of you on your knees before me. It wouldn't be suspicious of you to show me your homework in your room, now would it?"

 _ _Fuck, no!__ The voice raged from within. __He can go such his own dick for all the world! We won't be having any part of that fuckery! Not today, and not fucking ever!__

 _ _No choice,__ Harry muttered back.

"I have to put the roast on for supper first," Harry told him quietly, looking the man bravely in the eye. Those dark eyebrows lowered over his even darker eyes. "I'll be quick – it's just chicken. The rest can be done in half an hour or so."

"Good," said Tom with a quiet intensity. He gave Harry one last bruising squeeze and a rough kiss to his jaw, before shoving him away – almost overbalancing him from the weight of his bag. "I will await you in your room. If you don't arrive in ten minutes, little Henry will be getting a __visit__ _-_ " he sneered dangerously, "- and will replace you. I believe that is enough incentive to work quickly. Need there be more?"

Harry didn't bother wasting time with a reply, instead, he rushed down the hallway and into the kitchen, and got busy with making dinner, Tom's dark chuckle following him like a bad smell. He grabbed the necessary pots, pans and food, mindful of the clock ticking by on the wall, and began salting and preparing the stuffing.

"Six minutes, Harry," said Tom maliciously. Harry knew him to be leaning a shoulder against the threshold separating the dining room from the kitchen. "The longer I wait, the closer Henry gets to being your replacement. I'll be in your room."

Harry couldn't work fast enough to get that bloody chicken in the oven. He glanced at the clock just as he pushed the pan in, and sucked in an urgent breath. He had roughly two minutes to get upstairs and in his room before Tom hurt Henry.

He ran all the way upstairs, putting the memory of the mess he'd left in the kitchen to the back of his mind, where he knew he'd later remember it. So focused on getting there fast enough was he, that Harry almost ran right past his room. He skidded to a halt, huffing and panting with exhaustion, and cautiously crept inside – noting how unnaturally dim it was inside for being five-thirty in the afternoon, and that it was devoid of Tom.

The door slammed shut behind him, and that was the only warning he got before he, himself was slammed against it and an incredibly heavy body was crushing him into the wood – lips attacking his neck and hands groping painfully at his body. Tom moaned and grunted in arousal, laving the soft, soft skin of Harry's throat with his tongue and then nipping at the flesh with his teeth. "You taste so delicious," he moaned. "Young, supple – __ripe__ for the taking."

Harry carefully twist a hand up to push against Tom's shoulder when he felt those long hands begin pulling at his thighs, readying to spread them apart and lift him up. "Just – just a blowjob," he panted. "You said you wanted me on my – my knees."

"And I do," said Tom huskily into his ear, those sharp teeth gnawing at his lobe. " _ _After__ I fuck you."

"Can't," Harry told him breathlessly, eyes wide and glowing that beautiful shimmering emerald behind round spectacles. "Mum's coming back soon – and Henry's down the hall. No time."

Harry sucked in a deep, much needed breath as Tom eased back and released him, though it did nothing for pain left over. There were bruises on his bruises now, he felt. He'd be colored blue forever. And the cuts were aggravated and flaming on his back – not to mention where the doorknob dug in! Everything bloody well hurt.

Tom sashayed to his bed with sure steps, unbuckling his belt and expertly shedding his trousers and pants until they hugged at the middle of his thighs. He swung himself into the middle, his tall frame almost covering the entire left side from sheer muscle and height themselves. Those dark eyes bore into him hungrily, and he gave his lean stomach a pat, for all the world acting as if his cock wasn't out in front of another man.

Although, said other man had already had that cock in him since he was almost fourteen.

"Come here," Tom ordered him, with a sensuous flicker of his tongue on his slightly fuller lower lip.

Harry did so without a word, climbing atop his bed and kneeling beside the man. Tom smirked, eyes filled with a ravenous hunger that could never be full. "Sit on me," said Tom throatily, that smirk never leaving his face for one second.

Harry made to sit on his legs, as per the usual position when giving him a blowjob, but he was stopped by a glare. Uncertainly, Harry carefully made to sit on the man's waist – and was unpleasantly surprised when Tom snagged at his hips and pulled back roughly. He grimaced. If he leaned down, he would be right over the thin, long erection that jutted out of a perfectly shaped nest of black curls. Which was obviously what Tom wanted.

"Suck me," rasped Tom from behind, almost sounding irritated. Harry jumped when those hands began rubbing and touching his rear, and the erection before him twitched as if pleased with what those hands found. "Take me in you and please me, Harry."

Harry stared stonily at the red erection for one more moment, before lowering his head and giving the moist helmet a wide lick. Tom moaned breathily behind him, stiffening Harry's muscles when those hands looped round to his zipper and began fiddling with the button there, threateningly. He forced himself to breathe through the horror and disgust and took the twitching cock into his mouth, laving it up and down with spittle and making it shine in the low light.

"Such a good boy," Tom moaned perversely, thrusting his hips up just a little to work his cock further into Harry's mouth. Harry cringed around it. "Such a very, very good boy."

 _ _FUCK YOU!__ The voice raged. __WE'LL KILL YOU ONE DAY, TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE! You and your ridiculous fucking name!__

So used to this was he, that Harry didn't even gag when Tom undulated under him and forced his cock into his throat – practically choking him and depriving him of air that was already beginning to smell of sex. Harry bobbed his head and sucked hard, twirling his tongue around the slippery cock and rubbing the slick muscle along the throbbing vein that traveled its length. Tom made highly appreciative noises, though thankfully they were muted enough not to alert Henry.

"Going to fuck you so hard," Tom growled gutturally, thrusting his hips up hard enough to make Harry choke and cough around the hard, throbbing length. "Going to take what I – _Oh, fucking hell_ , want!"

Harry squeezed his eyes shut painfully tight, as if that could blot out the sounds Tom was making. But when those hands began undoing his trousers, he couldn't ignore it.

But he couldn't do anything about it, either.

 _ _Kill him!__ The voice shouted instantly. __Let's fucking kill him and stop it all that way! We don't need Dad to nab him, just get smash his head open!__

 _ _Can't!__ Harry screamed.

Harry bobbed his head faster, taking the arousal deeper into his throat and sucking harder than ever before. If he couldn't tell Tom to stop, he'd get Tom off before he could do anything. The salty, bitter taste of precum attacked his tongue in a wave, but he didn't stop. Nor did Tom, and just as Harry began to feel dizzy, his focus narrowed in on his trousers and pants around the top of his thighs and the slick finger worming its way to his entrance.

" _ _Yes,__ _"_ Tom hissed pleasurably, and Harry choked on pain as that long, long finger shoved its way past the ring of muscles and into his channel, uncaring of how unprepared he was. "So fucking _ _tight!__ _"_

Harry sucked in a deep, choppy breath at the stinging pain of having no lubrication and preparation, but soldiered on and continued his plan of bringing Tom off. He didn't cry, and he didn't protest; there was no point to either. His own cock was beginning to harden – despite the negation he felt at being taken like this. But his cock wasn't ruled by emotion, but pleasure, and with the way Tom stroked his prostate and roughly fingered him, it was happy enough to go along, even with him inwardly screaming and writhing in a baseless pain.

The pulsating cock in his mouth twitched – once, twice, and the man it belonged to began to pant and moan, a ceaseless movement from above that signaled the beginning of his completion. And then Tom stiffened up under him, the finger inside his hot channel spasming into a loose curl, and he came. A wash of bitter, salty come filled Harry's mouth - almost spitting at the back of his throat with how fast it came.

He swallowed regardless, with what one could call an expert sweep of his tongue catching the few droplets that escaped.

The finger slowly uncurled within and withdrew, and Harry permitted himself to sigh.

Tom curved his hands over his pale globes, massaging them in slow circles that parted them and exposed the tiny star hole. "Such a good fuck," Harry heard him say, feeling the wash of hot breath on his hole like a bucket of cold water. His cock twitched regardless. "You deserve a reward, dearest."

Harry gasped and jerked in shock as lips pressed against his entrance, mouth falling open as a hot, wet tongue circled around it and wiggled inside. It was so hot, so wet and dirty he almost felt the need to undulate back onto that tongue – but then he remembered whom it was that was doing it, and hesitated. But his cock twitched and drooled in his uncomfortably tight pants, enjoying the dirty, delicious feelings.

Tom moaned, and white hot sparks flew up Harry's spine at the feeling of such vibration, so different from the punishing toys Tom sometimes brought over and used on him. That tongue reached far into him, rutting into his channel in an imitation of something Tom obviously very much wanted. Harry gasped and choked as those hands kneaded at his cheeks, whilst that tongue almost touched his prostate and killed him on the spot. It was like there were ghost fingers touching it, rubbing it.

It was so good, but so very fucking bad at the same time. He didn't want this – couldn't want this, but his body was enjoying it so much and skewing his mind. He needed to get away, to stop this somehow, but it was too good to stop.

 _ _Couldn't help to take a little bit back, right?__ He panted inwardly, and allowed his hips to move back just that little bit more – moaning outright when that tongue reached even further into him and flickered just the right way – he let out a high, strangled moan.

 _ _Even if it feels good, it is still rape,__ said the voice staunchly.

Harry keened and undulated his hips back, unable to help and feeling as if someone was possessing his body. Tom moaned again, and thrust his tongue just the right way and – Harry came so fast and hard it was _blinding_. His mouth hung open in a silent scream and his breath was snatched from his lungs.

Tom chuckled deeply, tongue still moving languidly in his clenching hole, and the vibrations of that along almost sent Harry hurtling into another climax. Harry shuddered and gasped, clutching at the covers of his bed in shaking hands as if unable to do anything else. But when Tom withdrew from his hole and shoved at his arse, he allowed himself to slide from his figure and curled up on his side. He didn't care what he looked like – he felt drained. Emotionally, and physically.

The sounds of Tom pulling up his pants and trousers and doing up his belt was all that could be heard, before hands yanked at Harry pants, too, and the man did them up as well. His pants were sticky and uncomfortably wet, but he didn't care.

 _ _That's because we've just experienced what one calls an orgasm,__ the voice muttered testily. __We need to get up and get dressed before Mum comes in and sees us like this. We need to light one of those candles, too. Stinks like fucking in here.__

 _ _Will in a minute. Need a minute,__ Harry murmured, sounded as breathless in his mind as he did physically.

"I see you enjoyed yourself."

Harry's eyes snapped open, the good, empty feeling he'd had thoroughly smashed to pieces. He slowly sat up, looking around blearily.

"Get dressed and be downstairs in five minutes. Your mother will be home soon, and you still have dinner to make," Tom drawled, a lazy, satisfied smirk crawling onto his ruby red lips – lips that had just been moving on his hole. Harry blinked. "Perhaps I should do that every time, you look thoroughly done in," he observed slyly.

Harry didn't say anything, but he did look at him, to show he hadn't been ignoring him. The punishment for that was just as bad as if he'd intentionally pissed him off, and he'd only done that five times in the few years he'd been here. That's where he got most of his scars.

"But then, that would be mutual satisfaction, and you live only to please _me_ ," Tom sneered, cleaning himself up with expert reassurance that he looked just as he had when he'd arrived. "Get yourself cleaned up, you look like fucking shit, Boy."

Harry looked up at him blandly, but Tom didn't react other than to merely sneer and stride from the room, slamming the door shut behind him as if they'd had an argument and he'd won. Harry sighed.

 _ _Feel like we want to do it again?__ The voice asked sarcastically.

 _ _I feel empty,__ Harry mumbled, stretching out on his bed to work out any kinks he'd gotten from being bent like that for so long.

 _ _No fucking shit, we've just had the tongue of our enemy up our arse for nearly five minutes,__ the voice snapped irritably. _ _Hope you're fucking happy.__

 _ _Who even are you?__ Harry asked timidly.

 _ _Glad you fucking asked that, I was wondering when you'd start getting fucking suspicious,__ the voice sneered. But Harry noticed it hadn't actually answered.

 _ _Who are you?__

 _ _I'm__ _ _ **you**__ _ _, but I'm the one with more guts. The one you fucking booted up into the little box in your head,__ the voice snapped angrily. __This is what happens when you lock up your emotions when you're an elemental fucking sponge. You've soaked up so much shit over the years, you've learned to lock it all up here with me. And why am I not surprised you don't even know it?__

 _ _What the fuck do you mean by that?__ Harry snapped, frozen in a state he couldn't even name.

 _ _Well obviously__ you _ _couldn't act on your emotions,__ the voice sneered. _ _When you created the barriers and walls, you couldn't risk having any emotions at all – so you booted the thing that created emotions and acted upon them up here, along with the bloody things that engaged in your in them.__

 _ _And what's that?__ Harry cautiously asked, unsure whether he actually wanted the answer or not. It wasn't normal to talk to voices in ones head, but neither was it normal to suffer under rape and abuse for almost four years without cracking.

 _ _Your personality,__ the voice answered quietly, sourly. __When Tom fucked us up in the beginning, we fought him off. But all that changed when we saw Mum the next day. Why? Because you realized Mum needed a man in her life to be happy and you'd give her one, even if he kills us. And what would ruin all that? Your fiery, stubborn, fighting personality. You locked me up here, and had us running on zero emotions. And you wonder why Dad's always at work? Because he can't stomach seeing his emotionless, fucked up kid that was always just so like him.__

 _ _You can't mean that,__ Harry whispered. _ _I'm just going crazy, you can't be real..!__

 _ _Trust me when I say that no, you're not going crazy,__ the voice sighed, as if it were put under sufferance. Harry figured it might have. __What's happening is that the walls are crumbling, you're absorbing one too many abilities and they're weighing up to be too much for you. Or the walls, more like. You've boarded off so much of your mind and core that you've pushed us into a tiny little corral, and we're one too many for that.__

 _ _What can I do about that?__ Harry asked, a little bit fearfully.

 _ _You could let the walls down completely,__ the voice answered softly. __Let me back in. I can control our abilities easily, I've had enough time to familiarize myself with them, and once we're back to being one, you'll have that same knowledge – 'cause we're the same person. You've just gotta trust me.__

 _ _And what about... everything else?__

 _ _What, you mean Tom and our family?__ The voice asked, and if Harry could've nodded, he would've. __Well, I'm not exactly sure. I think we could go on as is until Dad and the other Marauders get back – us as one, of course. We can create temporary barriers to hold off the more volatile emotions when we have to deal with Tom. But other than that.. I'm not too sure, I've never been able to get your attention like this before. Not for lack of trying, by the by.__

 _ _How do we do this?__ Harry asked numbly.

 _ _When you got to sleep tonight, I'll make the final plunge and break apart the walls completely,__ the voice said quietly. __You shouldn't feel any pain, and when we wake up, we'll be back to the way we should've been. Whole.__

 _ _I hope this doesn't turn out to be a horrible mistake,__ Harry whispered. __I'm trusting you here, but only because I don't know what else to think.__

 _ _I know,__ the voice whispered back.


	3. Chapter 3

**WARNINGS: Rape, Non-Consensual Sex, Explicit Sex Scene, Biting, Blood Play.**

 **Chapter Three  
** **Don't Threaten Me With A Good Time**

When Harry awoke, it was to the sensation of being slowly withdrawn from a bed of mud – his lungs stretching to take in the air as if they hadn't in years. His limbs shifted and stretched, and without really knowing why, his lips curled upward in a dazzling smile. It was as if his senses were finally awakening after many years of being buried deep within. But when he blinked, something else echoed the motion, and although he should have been wary, he felt nothing but a lazy acceptance uncharacteristic of him.

 _ _It's the abilities I told you about,__ the voice echoed hazily in his mind, which seemed even louder the longer Harry seemed to focus on him, like a light bulb slowly flickering to life and growing stronger in the darkness. His once closed mind seemed to stretch for longer and farther than he'd ever imagined, a long, winding blanket of darkness that shifted and rippled in a nonexistent wind. _ _It'll take you a little while to get a hang of them, but my habits and routine from the box should be well enough to take care of that for you. Just breathe and relax – take in the feeling of freedom once more. Everything is taken care of.__

 _ _I dreamed last night,__ Harry whispered reverently, wide awake and dewy eyed in the fantastic feeling of being alive once more. _ _I – I remember seeing bright lights, and hearing Mum and Dad's voices. They were whispering about me, but I can't remember what they said...__

 _ _That'll be me taking effect, then,__ his voice murmured pensively, to his lazy bemusement. There was an annoyed sigh. _ _We've become one once more, and before our split Mum and Dad were finalizing their divorce and Riddle had only recently emerged in the picture. We'll have to pick up where we left off if we want to continue on like this,__ they explained, somewhat cautiously, picking over the words thoughtfully.

 _ _It didn't even hurt,__ Harry said abruptly, amazed, as if the thought hadn't occurred to him until just that moment. He felt a pang of what could only be the happiness that hadn't been in years, a burst of such fantastic pleasantness - it was very much like welcoming an old friend home. __I didn't feel a thing – I only dreamed. This is – this is bloody amazing!__

 _ _Calm down, you're making the damn lights flicker on and off - someone will notice!__ _T_ he voice snapped, but despite the irritation, it only heightened Harry's happiness even more. He could __influence__ _t_ hings now! The ceiling light seemed to flare up like a teakettle, but he couldn't give a bloody damn about it. The oppressing, crushing weight he'd resigned himself to for so long _was gone_ , he was free. He could feel again.

 _ _I don't care if I light up the whole house right now,__ Harry professed honestly, staring baldly up at the ceiling with a beaming grin. The voice tittered an annoyed sound and seemed to - to _ _turn around__ in his head. __Well, you can't tell me you aren't happy! I can feel stuff again! I feel relieved - happy, weightless,__ _ _free. I__ _ _ **feel.**__

 _ _As long as you don't get overzealous with__ feeling, _ _we can blend in seamlessly to the stupid norm you set,__ the voice muttered irritably, and Harry felt the first spark of pure, whole, undiluted annoyance. _ _Don't even bother trying to shut me out, either.__ _ _We're assimilating back together again, rather like Humpty Dumpty, and if you ignore me - the most vital piece of this fucked up puzzle, everything will crumble again. And it'd be a lot worse that time round.__

 _ _But you've already put us together again,__ Harry said, if a little bit uncertainly. __Haven't you? I mean, I feel a lot better than I did yesterday, and I can feel a whole lot more now...__

 _ _Don't be stupid!__ The voice snapped angrily. Harry bristled almost immediately - faltering only when the anger rushed at him so quickly he hadn't been able to translate it properly. __All I've managed to do so far is connect the base of your personality to - you. Your emotions. As soon as that's been properly stuck down again, I'll continue putting in the memories, but so far, we're not nearly done. Don't be so fucking impatient - the Great Wall wasn't built overnight.__

 _ _Oh, God... Will this make me do any crazy things? Should I expect to blow up from nothing?__ Harry begged to know. He startled when he felt a small nudge of approval he had absolutely no connection with.

Whoever they were in his head snickered for a moment, seeming to enjoy his fright, before it seemed to realize just how very annoyed he was getting. It was like holding a hammer over the head of a nail – ominous and threatening. He could still boot whomever it was back up into the box.

 _ _I don't know,__ they answered truthfully, if a bit grimly. __This is the first time I'm attempting this with you conscious and agreeable. When you slept, your guard and the walls were down the most, and I attempted to do these things then, but I was... unsuccessful, to say the least. I'm not going to lie to you, I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. I'm stumbling round in the dark here - well, there isn't exactly a__ _ _ **Manual**__ _ _for your mind, you know! I'm doing all I can with the limited knowledge I have, so don't even try it with me! I can feel what you feel remember? I can - and__ _ _ **am**__ _ _sensing the doubt growing right this bloody second!__

 _ _I'm not doubting you,__ Harry said very quickly, cautiously avoiding the huge clump of anxiety he'd felt sneaking up on him from the deep, dark, endless abyss of his mind. __Just as long as you don't fry a circuit up there or drive me raving mad, I'm fine to go along with you. But, just so you know, I can feel every twitch or move you make, so I know what you're doing when you're doing it. I'm watching you.__

 _ _That'd be really creepy if applied to another scenario, y'know,__ the voice told him conversationally. _ _Might need to lay off the horror movies for a while. Or avoid Riddle until his crazy stage is over.__

 _ _What do I call you, for the time being?__ Harry asked, albeit not quite as __politely__ as his Mum should have strictly liked. When speaking to irritable voices in one's mind, politeness he deemed, wasn't necessary.

 _ _Call me Harry.__

 _ **I'm**_ _ _Harry, thank you very much,__ Harry told them very tensely, and they huffed in reply. __You'll have to come up with something else.__

 _ _Well I'm not going along with what you've been calling me, that's for damn sure,__ the voice sneered, and Harry had half a mind to feel offended. _ _Just call me James, then, since I'm technically you and that's an attached part of your name, anyway.__

 _ _But you're not actually -__

"I knew you'd be awake."

Harry didn't jump, but the sudden arrival of Tom did startle him from his internal argument. The voice became dreadfully quiet in his head, a blessing in another circumstance, and emotions suddenly cluttered his mind like a dirty old attic, dredging up old feelings like the dead cobwebs they were.

"I didn't know you were there, Tom," Harry whispered, glancing to his old alarm clock warily. It was merely half an hour before sunrise, far too early for his Mum and brother to be awake. "It's incredibly early for you to be up. Don't you have work?"

It was far too early for him to be up and about – it was almost as if the man had set a ward or an alarm for when he'd be awake. It was far too convenient. If James had been here, even the slightest creak of the floor out in the hallway would have had him up and about. It was almost like a one fingered salute to the missing man.

"I wanted a good morning kiss before I left," said Tom in that low, husky drawl that Harry'd learned long ago to hate, slinking across the room with bare, silent feet. The door snicked shut with a very light push, as Tom had had the practice of doing. "And you're always so good at making me feel my best for the day, aren't you, Harry?"

Harry said nothing, instead choosing to employ the numbing blanket to his mind before any churnings of rage could have the chance to evaporate it. He nearly startled when his bed suddenly dipped under the weight of a much taller, heavier body, which soon bracketed him in his duvet and blankets, and spooned up around him.

A cold, rough hand ghosted oh-so tenderly over the slender, hot curve of his throat, prompting the glands in his mouth to malfunction and suck out all the moisture originally there. He swallowed thickly, and grimaced very lightly at the cotton clinging to his tongue and throat stubbornly. It almost made him gag from that sensation alone. But there were other problems he needed to put first.

Such as the fact that Tom wasn't wearing any bedclothes, and the faint scent of sex and his Mum's perfume lingered on his slightly cooled skin. The one part that remained as hot as lava was pressed up against his rear.

Harry felt sick to his stomach.

"Why don't you respond as readily to my advances anymore, Harry?" That voice purred into his ear, the hot tongue skirting his ear so luridly. Harry fought the urge to jerk his head back - to feel cartilage and delicate cheek bones break under his scalp. But he couldn't, even if everything in him told him to do it anyway. "Your Mother does. She loves my touch nearly as much as you, however she seems to show much more appreciation for it, far more __enthusiastically__ than you. I believe you ought to follow her example and make it up to me. __Touch me.__ _"_

 _ _Don't you dare,__ the voice spat, muffled only slightly by the blanket holding the fire back. __Don't you fucking dare do it, Harry Me Potter. You have power - power he hasn't got and can't counter, so use it!__ _ _ **Kill him now!**__

 _ _I can't,__ Harry whispered.

Mechanically, Harry removed his arm from the warm, safe cocoon of his bedding, and reached back and down, skirting his fingers down the twitching muscles of Tom's belly and to the hot, straining erection caught between the sheets and his rear. Tom's hiss of pleasure was embellished by the happy jerk of his turgid flesh in Harry's velvety hand.

Harry entertained the thought of ripping it off.

"You handle me so well, Harry," Tom purred into his scalp, nuzzling the sleep knotted hair affectionately - possessively. Harry barely blinked at the sensation. "I know how much you love the feel of me, hard and aching in your capable hands. It almost makes me dread the moment we end -" his breath stuttered and hitched for a moment, sounding very close to climaxing as Harry's fingers unconsciously tightened around the tumescence, "- as separate entities, and join together, forever. I'll never - __fuck, yesss, Boy__ _-_ be able to leave you. You'll always be by my side. Under my desk at work, between my legs sucking me off even as I earn us money, and in my bed. _Mine_ _forever_ ," he growled, and the sound almost confused Harry for rage, if he hadn't suddenly grabbed Harry round the waist and thrust against his blanket clad rump with a sharp, shuddering hiss.

Harry never stopped his ministrations, even with the difficult, nigh on impossible angle he'd been forced into. The punishment for stopping would probably be as bad as if he'd refused, and as he was still smarting from the last beating he'd been given, he really didn't feel all that up to another session. But the rage bucking and battering at the blanket in his mind was beginning to crash through, like a battering ram on a rampage. He could hear the voice screaming obscenities in his head, the words echoing in his ears like the thing was right beside him.

The light above flickered on and off, but Tom didn't notice, for all the world focused entirely on humping into Harry's rear as if he owned it. But Harry noticed, and if it weren't for the steel-like control snapping even more into play, he would've fried the fucker dead.

"You are mine, Harry James Potter," Tom whispered breathlessly into his ear, voice intense despite its breathless qualities, passionate even as he grappled roughly with a handful of Harry's thick, stubborn raven hair and yanked his head back to his expose his vulnerable, delectable throat. He wasted nought time to lave at the incredibly soft, smooth skin with his tongue, and Harry just __knew__ what he was about to do. He had but a moment to tense and brace himself for it and the intense pain, before Tom inevitably sunk his sharp teeth into his neck and suckled perversely at the resulting wound as if it were the finest of sweets. There was much more blood than usual – Harry could feel it pooling and running thickly across his clavicle. "And you always will be," he moaned gutturally.

Jaw clenched incredibly tight against the horrible pain lacing the blood in his veins, Harry forced himself to keep his head in the same uncomfortably stretched position, despite Tom's slackening, distracted grip in his hair. He kept his hand in the same shape and movement, moving in a motion so firmly ingrained it was as if he'd never forget it; His hand squeezing tighter and tighter and _ _twisting__ to the right just when it reached the tip, fingers absently playing at the frenulum. Tom was a silently moaning mess behind him.

 _ _We can end it now.__

 _ _What?__ Harry queried tonelessly, almost completely submerged in the icy water of nothingness in his mind.

 _ _We are stronger than him. We can kill him now and save Dad the trouble of having to lock him up. No one deserves to see him, he doesn't__ _ _ **deserve**__ _ _to live.__

 _ _Who are we to judge whom is to live and die?__ Harry countered blandly, and compelled himself to ignore the tugging and forceful shiftings of his duvet and bedclothes, as Tom wriggled his way by habit between the sheets. __He may use my body as his own, and as a stress-reliever but that doesn't give me the right to end him. If he tried anything with Henry or anyone else, then... Perhaps that is another story.__

 _ _So you'd let him fuck us -__ _ _ **damage us,**__ _ _fuck our Mum around like a love-sick puppy and take hold of the family house, just so Mum can get laid? Since when did you start putting money and their happiness above of our life?__ James was snarling, but Harry only heard him through one ear. His pants were around his knees, and his right knee was angled up and bent. But it was the slippery, pulsing, meaty helmet that was rubbing at his exposed hole that had his attention. __For fuck's sake, Harry! Just fucking kill him already!__

Harry gurgled low in his throat when the head pressed insistently inside, hardly finding any resistance in the moist cavern from last night's go of it. It was too hot and uncomfortable, not entirely slick enough inside for a smooth entry, and he could feel the almost boiling precum searing at his insides like liquid fire. He was all too aware of the juddery movements Tom's hips made, where they found small pockets of resistance from where the lubrication had thinned up too much, or hadn't initially reached.

It didn't feel good at all, and the stinging pain in his neck was drying up any sensations of pleasure he might've found anyway.

 _ _No fucking shit,__ James sneered contemptuously, a tangle of seething rage behind the ragged curtain. __Of course it doesn't feel bloody good, you don't want this - and we're practically bleeding to death!__

Harry stared hard at his old alarm clock, watching the flashing numbers pass by as Tom got into more of a groove and worked his long, pulsing shaft even further into his arse. The bed didn't creak at all anymore, as Harry had had to tighten the screws every once in a while to silence it, and Tom didn't thrust fast enough to make the headboard knock into the wall. It was long, painful and too far drawn out to be enjoyable for anyone other than Tom.

And despite the lengthy fuck, they hadn't ever gotten caught. Not once. Even if Harry or Tom made any noise, they either weren't heard, or were ignored in favor of something else. Almost as if they knew what was happening, but refused to put an end to it.

Not even the sudden spark of pleasure that flushed up his spine made Harry want to keen and shudder back, even as it returned once more as Tom withdrew and bypassed his prostate again. He had no passion or lust for Tom, despite his the man's claims that he did. It was purely business – to keep the remaining two Potters and Evans afloat in a happy home.

Tom didn't understand it, for all Harry's half-arsed hints.

The discomfiture leveled up another notch as Tom's hips began darting almost mechanically against his cheeks, as if sawing his cock into his arse to imprint the way it slid in and was enshrouded by Harry's winking hole. Hot precum pooled in his channel, and suddenly, Tom stiffened and slammed in one last time, muffling a groan into the back of Harry's head and dipping his face to the weeping wound on his throat.

"Perfect, as always," Tom murmured, nuzzling the overheated flesh of Harry's elegant, long neck. His tongue interrupted the easy flow of the blood wandering aimlessly across Harry's clavicle, and he smacked his lips together is deliberating the tastiness of a fine wine. He seemed to love it, for he continued lapping at the stream in wonder. "And so delicious to boot. How do you stay so delectable, dearest one? You seem to be getting better the more you age – you even taste better than you did last night."

 _ _Magic has a way of strengthening blood, pathetic worm,__ James seethed darkly. __That'd be why your blood is so fucking thin and flimsy. You're nothing but a fleshy bag of dog shit and cat vomit.__

"I don't know," Harry murmured blankly, ignoring the sickening tongue that lapped at his neck as if gleaning the secrets to life. "I don't really do anything to change the taste of my blood. I don't do anything to doll myself up at all."

"You would look highly disgusting if you were to wear cosmetics," Tom absently agreed, still tonguing the wound with relish. "It'd ruin your unique – features. I'd have to punish you if you were to so much as attempt to touch your Mother's collection. I can hardly stomach the sight of her when she wears that chemical filth. Not even when her lips are painted red and stretched around my enormous cock. _**You will not wear cosmetics, for any reasons.**_ "

Harry steeled himself against an adverse reaction, belatedly recognizing the sharp prickle at the back of his neck for something of an - a _manipulation_ of sorts. He could feel James's smug satisfaction, and just hear the quietly murmured ' _Not this time, Arsehole'_ in the back of his mind. Belatedly, he hummed, as he always did when Tom spoke in that commanding, silky voice, and allowed Tom to slowly slide his still partially hard cock from his entrance, and wipe the sticky mess on the back of his shirt.

It wouldn't do to anger him when he'd so recently cum.

 **-oOoOoOo-**

"Did anything happen last night?" Draco whispered into his ear, rather tensely, when Harry sat down beside him at their conjoined desk. Apparently unwilling to waste any time with 'Hello's or a 'How are you?'

Harry glanced at him with a rather bitchy scowl. "When does nothing happen when he's around?" He countered bitterly.

Apart from being taken aback by the snark, Draco merely scowled in return and huffed, ruffled enough to give his ice head a shake. "Well, what happened this time?" He asked impatiently. "What did he do to make you wear -" he gestured vaguely at Harry's black turtleneck sweatshirt, looking none too pleased by it, "- that disgraceful thing? You wear black, but that thing is horrendous!"

"Good to know you're concerned for my mental health, Draco," Harry remarked sarcastically, concentrating more than he had to on emptying his bag of the notebook and pencil case for class. Snape was an arsehole to him, for some incredibly obscure reason, and he'd rather not give the man any more ammunition. The blonde pouted, and followed his lead in pulling his own things out. "Really, you're a good friend to be looking out for me in such a way. I almost thought it beyond you."

"I help people," Draco told him stiffly, sniffing somewhat pompously. "Just not when you're around. Now stop evading my questions!"

Harry scoffed, far louder than he'd wanted it to be, he realized, as a few of the surrounding students turned round to peer at them curiously. Harry pointedly ignored them. "Please. You'd drink the last glass of water available even if someone were on fire and standing right in front of you," he said, snorting indelicately.

"I would if I needed to quench my thirst," Draco drawled, to Harry's disgusted amazement. "If only because there would be someone with dominion over water standing conveniently nearby. There always is when something is burning."

"I have no words for that," Harry said, quite blandly for the emotion he could feel welling up inside. There was just too much to feel to properly word a retort. And to think he actually might have thought Draco capable of empathy – especially when talking about his little __dealings__ with Tom. Did he really feel like he could help Harry, or was he involved only for the drama going on in his life? Was the blonde just trying to live vicariously through him, even if it was something no one in their right mind would want to experience?

Draco had said he would help put Tom away, but what could he contribute to do that? He could only put the journal forward and say it was Harry's official accounts of what had happened over the years; A witness of sorts, in other words. He couldn't do much else, and they were in agreement that he wouldn't confront Tom on any circumstances, whatsoever. Tom was dangerous, and Draco was vulnerable - never having been attacked by anyone older than Harry himself.

But if Draco was scared enough, would he go through with handing the journal over?

He was very luckily drawn out of his dark thoughts by Draco's voice. "You don't need to," said the blonde impatiently, waving his hand as if to bat the previous topic away. "Anyway, now tell me what happened yesterday and last night. Something bad must have gone on if you're avoiding my questions like this. You hadn't so far."

 _ _Oh, nothing at all, idiotic blonde one,__ said James with false cheerfulness. _ _We only needed to change our sheets and trash one of our only sets of jammies because too much blood had soaked into it – and too much spunk to get out. Oh! And the best part is, we only have to wear a turtleneck shirt for the next three weeks until the bite and bruising on our neck heals up! Isn't that just lovely? My, it makes me wonder just what you think could have gone on? Oh, and lets not forget the severe pain of having to sit on these stiff wooden chairs with an arse like a bloody fire-bed. Would it kill someone to put a cushion on one of these things? Or at least make these things more bloody comfortable? We're bloody teenagers - more than enough blokes take it up the arse here than not.__

Harry didn't even blink, though he had to say he was startled, when the chair suddenly lost its patent stiff seat and seemed to hug his sore rear like a cotton mattress. He glanced down, and frowned when the normal sight and grain of the familiar classroom chair greeted him between his thighs. It felt like his tush was sitting on a downy pillow, but it looked like he was sitting on the usual torture devices.

 _ _Abilites,__ James chimed from a distance.

"Right," Harry mumbled.

"So, _what_ was it?" Draco demanded to know. "You're making me a little nervous with your evasions."

Harry glanced around them warily, at the students that were talking to their desk-mates and seemingly sufficiently distracted. It wasn't like they'd believe him if they listened, anyway. Anyone would just think he was making stories up to attract attention. Even if he were the only person within the entire school known not to have any powers at all, and was a general magnet for attention anyway.

But still.

"I put everything in my journal this morning when he left," he muttered, to the blonde's reluctant disappointed acceptance. "I don't wanna talk about it aloud. Not here, anyway."

Any and all chances of continuing their conversation flew out the window when the classroom door slammed open, and every child's nightmare personified stormed in, his long legs eating up the floor. Silence descended, and anyone caught without their books and stationary out was given an acid worthy glare, and stared at until they had the brilliant idea to get said items out.

There was a small flutter about the room, as said unprepared students prepared themselves. When – and only when everyone was ready, he spoke in his low, silky drawl that only he could affect.

"You have all studied at this institution for many years, and most will soon be progressing to your final and Senior years. And yet, there are those that still find it difficult to grasp the concept of preparedness," Snape mused in that chilling voice, almost sounding ponderous in the large lecture room. Harry knew first-hand the wrath that would befall anyone stupid enough to question him; he was the professor's favorite target, after all. "I hardly think they would be ready to proceed, as they have yet to understand the dimwit level of the First year," he sneered cruelly, his thin, sallow lips stretched back in a shark-like snarl that had a hum of unease passing through his students.

A low murmur swept round the room, but Harry was smart enough to remain silent and watchful. The tall dower man looked ready to pounce on some unsuspecting student, and with his rotten luck, it'd be him that'd be taken down the unneeded notches. The fact that he was always ready and prepared for Snape's class didn't earn him any brownie points, but it did seem to annoy the man, as he'd have to think up reasons to call on him in class and give him 'Much needed' detentions. Harry, Ron and Hermione had lost count of how many detentions Harry had had with the man.

And sure enough, Snape's dark, tunnelling eyes set upon him with a stony determination. "I believe I should like to be begin this lesson with one of Potter's measly little displays," he said silkily, a malignant smirk touching those narrow lips. "As an example of how laziness and insipidity affects the mind and the ability to influence. A manifestation of any kind should suffice, as it would prove to be evidence of his truly _ _exceptional__ skills."

 _ _Ooh, this is gonna be gooood,__ said James in a darkly mischievous whisper, an insufferable smirk in his voice. _ _Too long has he bullied us for our unfortunate situation, and cowed us into silence. Now, it's time to get some pay-back!__

 _ _What are you going to do?__ Harry hedged out suspiciously, just that little bit concerned for the arrogant bastard standing expectantly in front of them all. Bullying and biased he may be, but Harry really didn't want to antagonize one of the more vicious of his professors. He was bad enough already.

 _ _ **We**__ _ _are going to show that stupid, sallow, arse-faced pillock just how powerful we are,__ James told him determinedly, simmering in the wings with anticipation and a darkly veiled glimmer of excitement. __No longer will we suffer under his biased teachings and blatant favoritism of the Active elements. He thinks he knows power, but he knows nothing - and that's just what we're going to teach him.__

"Are you merely slow-witted, or are you deaf, Boy?" Snape sneered, an altogether ugly expression curling his sallow-skinned face. It was almost too easy to see Tom in that look - especially the curling, languid way he said 'Boy.' "I said, _ _come here.__ "

 _ _Well?__ James drawled, almost casually. _ _We should do as we're told. He wants us down there with him, so let's go down.__

 _ _We're not hurting anybody,__ Harry told him severely. __If you even try to make a snap at Snape, I'm locking you away - consequences be damned.__

Unwilling to listen to the snickers and low taunts some of the more volatile students sneered at him, and the heavy silence that came from Draco, Harry rose from his seat and strode as determinedly as he could down the aisle, hands fisted at his sides and face set in stony silence. Snape's scowling, pitch black eyes watched him closely, but it was all too evident that he was clearly unimpressed with what he was seeing. Not that Harry liked looking at Snape, either. In fact, the former very much hated looking at the greasy haired git. And the dislike was certainly mutual on both ends, as it was all too evident when they caught sight of the other.

Not even the Headmaster tried to intervene when they went head to head with each other, although, the number of times Harry had merely stood there and allowed Snape to spear him with his barbs was well over one hundred. But, Harry hadn't his personality then.

He did now, and he was furious enough to feel tingly in his toes and fingertips.

Harry stopped walking merely feet from the tall figure of Snape, but even that was too close for either of them to stand. Snape's upper lip curled in what Harry thought was disgust, and Harry's emerald orbs darkened with emotion too great to really conceal – Snape's nostrils flared. They were at a stalemate, neither wanting to break or give in for one reason or another. And God, the hate flowing between them was almost tangible in the air between them. It stank up the room with tension, flooding the few students brave enough to sit at the front of the room with trepidation.

And then the tension snapped as suddenly as it'd come.

"Well, Potter? What are you waiting for?" Snape asked darkly, an edge in the sharp, dull tones that Harry __really__ didn't like. Harry's shoulders tensed, and the already flimsy, brittle control separating his emotions from the surface became yet even more flimsy. One little push from James's little toe, and it'd be gone. "Manifest something. If it is not too much trouble to ask of your already limited mind, of course," he said silkily.

Harry didn't even have to try, in the end. He simply.. lowered the floodgates between his mind and the link of abilities that clinked and rattled excitedly.

One moment, the large wing-backed chair Snape usually sat in was seated near the front desk, and the very next moment, an array of splinters and chunks of dark cherry wood were flying in an explosive shower of debris from the far wall. The sound was horrendously loud in the still, quiet room, which not even a church mouse could hide in.

No one had actually expected him to be able to do anything. It made him feel at least the smallest bit happy that he'd done what was deemed impossible – he'd done something __they__ thought was impossible.

Snape stared at him intently, a well disguised twitch of shock widening those dark eyes for merely a second, before it was gone and the sneering man was sneering down at him once more. "A pathetic first attempt at manipulation, Potter," he said acerbically. "Perhaps if you put that feeble mind to work, you would learn some control. Detention at four o'clock this afternoon, Potter. My office."

 _ _Oh, I'll show you control, Snape,__ James hissed murderously, to Harry's belated alarm.

Every pencil or pen left unguarded on every filled desk was lifted into the air, mere meters above the heads of their gawping, fish-like owners. Harry didn't even blink as some began spinning on their sides on the spot, and others merely bobbed up and down - a feat many couldn't perform in the physical rendition of rubbing one's belly, whilst patting the top of their head. It was an odd sensation for someone who hadn't had powers before - or at least had had no experience manipulating anything. He could feel the pull on his emotions and body, a curious sensation not unlike someone gently tugging at his arm hairs, but he didn't feel any bit of the drainage many usually felt at using their powers.

In fact, he felt incredibly exhilarated and giddy, which blended in rather well with James's own smugness and euphoria, which decorated the long, winding blanket of his mind like wild flowers in bloom.

He glanced at Snape, and paused at finding that he was already being watched by the man. He was unsure of what those onyx eyes were telling him, but they were intense, and bore into him a lot deeper than even Tom's could. Only the Headmaster had such a unique ability, an ability that judged Harry worthy of attending Hogwarts, and Harry never expected it to be replicated by another person – let alone the dower, sneering Severus Snape. It surprised him enough to allow the slip of the pulling sensation to gradually cease, and vaguely, he could hear the stationary return to their owners with a clatter.

"Perhaps," Snape began, quite venomously for even him. "With time you will come to see that arrogance has no place within our society. If you cease using your ability like it is a toy, then mayhaps you will finally advance past that of a child's level. Go back to your seat, Potter."

Harry turned and walked back to his seat without a word, compelling himself to focus on Draco's gobsmacked expression out of the small swamp of stunned, staring students. He sat down gingerly, but nothing but the gentle comfort of a downy pillow met his stinging behind. Relief swelled up, thick and fast, and he slowly relaxed down into his seat enough to slump.

"Just when were you going to tell me that you identified with an element, Harry?" Draco finally squawked out, his jaw and mouth still uncharacteristically working as if he were still speaking. There looked to be a thousand words in those grey eyes, but Harry could make out only one; Betrayal.

Harry frowned at it. "Later," he said shortly, and turned in his seat just in time to catch Snape glaring up at the both of them, quite severely. He'd written on the board in his thin, spidery scrawl, and the other students were busy at work copying it down - aside from the both of them, of course. Although Harry could see a few boys glance back at him every once in a while. They were still watching him.

Draco obviously noticed as well, as he simultaneously stiffened and turned rigidly in his seat. "I'm holding you to that, Potter," he muttered coolly, and began writing the coursework down with a flourish of his feathered and bejeweled pen. "And do try to be on your best behavior in Professor Snape's office, I won't be subjecting myself to your rantings and ramblings when I arrive at your home for too long."

Harry bit back the retort that almost jumped free from his lips, and ducked his head in an effort to not notice the intense, bordering on constant stares coming his way from all around the room. But it was getting increasingly hard to do so when he realized that the main culprit lie not within the rows of students, but stood in the place of the man at the very front of the classroom.

 _ _Mum's not going to like this,__ he thought grimly.

 _ _Like you're going to tell her about__ ** _Snape_** _ _giving you all these detentions. You know as well as I do that she gets weird whenever he's mentioned,__ James mused disinterestedly. Harry pictured a smaller version of himself using Draco's method of innocence; Feigning boredom and investigating the length and bluntness of his nails. _ _In fact, I think you're not gonna tell her anything about this at all. We hate seeing dear old Mum upset, don't we?__

 _ _I'm still telling her,__ Harry told him firmly, regardless of the vicious jab.

 _ _We'll see.__

 ** **-oOoOoOo-****

Harry, in fact, didn't mention anything of Snape to his Mum at all. When he'd gotten home, with an uncharacteristically quiet Henry in tow, he'd found her scurrying about the kitchen with a sea of shopping bags strewn about the various flat surfaces. She'd looked more tired than he'd ever seen her – her normally perfectly coiffed hair falling from its bindings and fraying out messily, clothes spotted and dotted with fluids unknown but suspected to be blood, and a rather harried expression on her face.

He hadn't the heart to drag her down even more with his news, even whilst James snickered and laughed meanly in his head, so he'd merely sent Henry packing upstairs - and James to a darker corner of his mind, and spent the next two hours putting away grocery bags and preparing dinner; A mean and very succulent lamb stew he'd perfected and down pat since he was young enough to make spaghetti bolognese.

It was something of a specialty he made for company, or at least, that's what Lily often said when she asked him to make it. And since she wasn't nearly as much of a chef in the kitchen, she couldn't replicate it to save her life. So Harry ended up making most of the meals in the house, except for the occasional burnt, overly floury pancake, and the odd burnt to a cinder rashers of bacon she made them on the weekend. Other than that, it was cereal and canned soup that no one in their right or messed up minds could make a blunder of. Even if it tasted like minced tomatoes and squished chicken at times.

Harry had made it a point in the past to make Henry mention nothing of the horrible state of food to their mother, who really was trying too hard to support them all in the stead of their missing father. And the little blighter hadn't. _Yet._

In the stead of the music he listened to whilst cooking, and mostly out of concern, Harry had ended up listening intently for the past half an hour as Lily raced about the house like a blue-arsed fly, and finally ended up tracking her steps running up and down the basement staircase in the occasional interval. She had obviously prepared the theatre room for them to use later, probably setting up blankets or some such for them in case they slept there.

Although, a girl sleeping in the same room as three boys was putting a hefty amount of trust in them. Lily probably thought Hermione could handle herself if one of them 'came onto' her. And the bossy, know-it-all, all-knowing girl probably could. Her power was to know the history of all the things she touches, after all, and to absorb knowledge from the littlest of things; Such as books and photographs.

How the girl hadn't known about what Tom did to him, had always been a bit of a mystery to him. It had even caused a spectacular fight between them in which nothing was spoken to the other, and they'd avoided each other like the plague. Ron had of course, landed himself in rather hot water whenever he associated with one of them and not the other, at least until Harry had finally ruled out Hermione ever possibly knowing about the abuse. As, for one, the girl wasn't likely to let him go on living under something so cruel, and for another, she wasn't plagued by any nightmares that he knew of.

James's explanation was rather short with him and cantankerous, but was more precious than he could ever say. _ _We're what I call a power sponge; We can absorb from all, use, and repel the original vessel if they tried to use their ability against us again. The girl would have used her gift on us once to let us suck it into our repertoire, and then when you wished to hide all your dealings with Tom, she couldn't consciously do it anymore. She tried at lunch the other day when she tried to grab our hand, but she couldn't get anything from us. We'd effectively taken in her ability and developed strategies to block her off. That's why she's suspicious of our sudden change, because she's never had something or someone do that to her. She's used to being powerful and all-knowing, and it threw her off when we, the useless, pathetic person we're known as, stopped her from sucking out our brains. She wants to know how we do it.__

Harry hadn't said anything to that to show he'd heard what was said, though it was quite impossible not to have heard when it was said in his head, but James had obviously understood, as he'd quickly disappeared and not spoken a word since. He'd already thrown Harry off with his prompt and surprisingly viable answer, and anything else was just pushing him further and further off course. It was lucky his Mum hadn't arrived until the half hour hit the forty minute mark, for if she'd seen him, she'd have thought he was going to pass out from the look of how ghostly pale he was.

"Are your friends joining us for supper, Harry?" Lily queried tirelessly, even as her bloodshot eyes sagged and drooped in exhaustion. The black smudges that were usually mostly hidden by her bright smile were even more prominent than ever, almost looking as if she'd rubbed charcoal under her eyes, and she looked as if a stiff wind would topple her over. "I'm not sure if it'll be enough to fill everyone, but I bought enough sweets and snacks to tide you all over if there isn't. They and a sea of blankets and pillows are down in the basement, ready for if you lot end up sleeping down there. Do you think I've forgotten anything else?"

Harry shook his head minutely, watching from the corner of his eye as Lily tottered around the kitchen dizzily, touching here and there as if reassuring herself where the bowls and utensils were sitting ready for the stew that Harry had made from scratch. "There's plenty here, Mum," he said quietly. "We could probably invite the entire neighborhood, actually, and there'd still be loads left over."

"Yes, maybe we could invite the neighbors in for a lovely dinner..." Lily mumbled nonsensically to herself, blinking dully at one of Henry's more newer stick-figure drawings on the refrigerator. "Plenty of stew to go around, and there is that sick child down the road.. Stew is good for a cold."

Harry looked at her closely, eyebrows furrowed up. "Why don't you go and lie down for a bit," he suggested, hooking the dripping wooden spoon onto a conveniently conjured rack above the bubbling stew and facing the woman square on. Lily looked at him strangely, blinking blearily. "You look like you could drop where you stand, Mum - and anyway, supper won't be ready for ages yet. I'll wake you when it's done, I promise."

"But your friends, I need to invite them in," Lily said uncomprehendingly, voice trailing off into confusion. "It's bad manners for the host to be asleep when their guests arrive."

"Technically, they'll be my guests, seeing as I'll be the one with them all night," Harry told her gently, and she frowned. Harry sighed. "For once, can you __not__ put someone else ahead of you and just look after yourself instead? You need to rest, or else you'll get sick and burn out again, and you know how Henry and I feel about you being sick like that."

"I suppose I do need to sleep, just for a little bit," Lily mumbled dreamily, almost cracking her jaw when a terribly indelicate yawn escaped her. Finally, she sighed and nodded wearily. "OK, I see your point. I'll go and put my feet up for a bit – unless you need help with supper. Do you need help with anything?" She asked quietly.

Harry smiled indulgently. "I'm quite fine, I've been doing this for ages now, you know," he told her, amused. "You go and 'put your feet up', and I'll take care of things down here. Go on, before you fall flat on the floor and sleep there."

"Yes, __Dad__ _,_ " Lily wearily teased, before giving her eyes a rub and shaking her head to no doubt wake herself up a bit more. She had some stairs to navigate, of course. "Wake me up in half an hour, would you, Love?"

"When supper's ready, I'll come wake you," Harry very subtly corrected her, smiling when she merely gave him another strange look.

"Alright," she reluctantly agreed, and very slowly drifted out of the kitchen, as if waiting for the inevitable moment when the stove exploded in a shower of lamb stew and all chaos ensued. But when nothing else happened bar Harry turning the hob down a little, she resigned herself to what she thought would a half-hour nap.

Harry wouldn't wake her up for anything but dinner, and then he'd send her straight back to bed with orders of a long, restful sleep undisturbed by anyone. It often paid to have a Mum who worked as a doctor, as his logic was something derived of her own, and she couldn't refute that sleep was a necessity. That, and he didn't need to go to the Hospital every time he fell ill, unlike Henry, who didn't get sick with the little things, but was bedridden for the big stuff. Such as the time he broke his left arm in two places by jumping from a high ledge and trying fly the rest of the way down in the Superman pose. Not only did he not manage to do it, but he was also grounded for the six weeks and unable to personalize his fibreglass cast.

As he was just stirring the food once last time, he heard an energetic knock sound from the front door. By the sound of it, it was either Ron or Hermione, although Hermione seemed to like to keep her knocking evenly spaced and proficient sounding. Ron just didn't care, a knock was a knock. It was obviously not Draco.

And it wasn't.

It was actually Amanda Pettlecorn, looking quite nervous and unsure of herself, but standing somewhat determinedly on his front doorstep as if she was about to face some great danger. She positively beamed when she realized it was him who'd opened the door, and waved rather stupidly at him. She stopped that quite quickly when she realized how idiotic she seemed, waving at someone when she was right in front of them.

"Hello?" Harry uncertainly said.

"Oh, hello there, Harry!" She very awkwardly greeted him, her smile wavering some. "I was just, er, walking by your house when I noticed this sitting on your lawn," she said, pulling out a rather plain, if a bit roughly handled envelope from her coat pocket and holding it out to him with a smile that bordered on uncomfortable. "I didn't know whether you'd noticed it or not, so I kind of just - uhm, picked it up..? For you? Uh, well here it is then, your - letter thingy," she finally spat out, and flushed a vicious red when he slowly stretched out a hand and gently grabbed it from her, uncertainly waiting for the moment she snatched it back or dropped it out of sheer nerves.

Was he really that scary?

"I'll just go now," she said lamely, if a bit dumbly, and practically sprinted back down the snow-ridden path and round the huge hedge bordering the neighbor's front yard, and out of his sight. And despite her no longer being there, her overly sweet, candy smelling perfume coiled in the cold air behind her as if her very presence was still in front of him.

Was it just him, or was that actually one of the most weirdest and scariest encounters he'd ever had?

 _ _Someone's a bit extra nutty in their fruitcake,__ snickered James, obviously amused for all of Harry's paranoia. __Oh,__ _ _go on already, Harry! Open it! I can't wait to see what she's written!__

 _ _She wouldn't have done it... Would she? I mean, she played Henry around for a fool, why would she try and do it to me when she knows I'm annoyed?__ Harry asked bemusedly, staring down at the envelope as if it was danger in disguise.

 _ _Obviously it must have been practice for the real thing,__ said James dryly, before Harry felt a flurry like motion in his mind that reminded him of someone waving their hands impatiently. It was rather odd to have someone do it in his mind. _ _Well? Go on!__

 _ _Maybe later,__ Harry said grimly, looking the envelope over in sheer reluctance and distaste. _ _I don't much appreciate a person that doesn't say anything to my face.__

James was uncharacteristically silent, a time in which Harry had closed the door against the bone chilling cold, and retreated back to stir the stew still bubbling away cheerily on the hob. He was almost a bit worried for it, even if the voice wasn't supposed to be there at all, but he could do nothing to prod it into speaking, so he ended up putting some loaves of garlic bread in the oven and putting a few potatoes on to boil in their skins - something Lily and Henry liked to eat with cheese, sour cream and butter.

When James still hadn't answered, he ended up checking out the basement. But only when he'd stirred the food, set a timer on the oven, and checked on the quickly heating up water and the potatoes, and only out of sheer boredom and an unwillingness to worry about yet another thing.

Well, Lily had certainly been right about there being a sea of blankets and pillows in here. The floor was practically covered in them, and there were snacks strewn about galore. It was almost like playing Easter egg hunt, only with bags of chocolates and chips and such instead of the little egg-shaped candies. The stacks of movies were pulled out from the cupboard, a bit hastily and clumsily dusted from being locked away so long, and the reasonably sized television removed of any dust and debris very thoroughly.

Well, whoever said the Evans were people of patience, anyway?

"Why was Amanda here?"

Years of being surprised by something malicious taught Harry not to show his fear in any way, but every time he couldn't stop the blink of startlement. He glanced back to see Henry standing on the landing, arms crossed stubbornly across his chest and a mean look on his face.

"I don't know why she was here," he carefully stated, to the narrowing of Henry's hazel eyes and the annoyance in response of that. "Only that she'd apparently seen a letter laying on the lawn, and wished to give it to me. She was gone soon after."

"Give me it," Henry demanded, unscrewing his arms and jumping down to level with his older brother.

Harry glared at him thunderously, but he worked very hard to control the sudden urge to go into a spectacular rage. "No," he said tersely instead. "It could be from one of my friends, and stuff like that's very personal." _ _Or it's from Tom.__

 _ _Yeah, can't have__ ** _ **that**_** _ _finding its way into stupid hands like his,__ James muttered quietly, but no less angrily. Harry was almost relieved to hear his voice echo in his mind again, if it weren't for the even greater anger he found coming from its direction. He was already angry enough to fly into a frenzy, and that was _ _without__ James adding anything to it!

"Or it's from Amanda to me!" Henry bellowed, throwing his hands out to give Harry a rather harsh shove in the chest. He didn't push him far, but it was enough to make Harry stiffen in outrage. "Give me the fucking thing right now, or I'm telling Mum!"

"Don't you dare wake her up, you little halfwit!" Harry hissed in fury. Henry stopped moving altogether then, as if held in place by some invisible force that stopped all other motion but the movement of the boy's wide eyes, which stared up at him like luminous orbs of tumbling soil and earth. The doe-eyed look didn't work, however, and Harry found himself at war with what he should do. A rant seemed an easy enough option, Henry hadn't been chastised by anyone but their Mum as of late - and their Dad had often been the one to yell at them endlessly if they did something wrong.

Well, it seemed as if that particular job fell to him now that the man wasn't here. It was time to live up to his namesake.

Straightening his spine and squaring his shoulders, Harry took in a deep breath and gave Henry the most scolding, stern and _disappointed_ look he could manage in his young, but wise life. He knotted his arms on his chest, and thinned his lips until he appeared every bit as commanding he could remember James Potter being. He hoped he looked the part of disapproving Dad or older brother enough.

"You are thirteen years old, Henry," he said severely, and a thrill of satisfaction and surprise sparked through him when Henry actually _ducked his head in shame_. "You shouldn't be threatening to run away from your problems – to go to _Mum_ of all people. You should be facing them head-on like a man, and using your manners before brute force and verbally abusing someone to get what you want. Mum doesn't need us running her about anymore than Tom already does, she desperately needs some sleep and by God, if you even try to wake her up before supper's served, I __will not hesitate__ to slam your head into the door until you look like the knob you are. Got it?"

Henry remained blessedly silent, staring down at the blanket under his shoe-less feet despondently.

"Good," Harry growled, relaxing only enough to let his arms fall to his sides. "Now leave me alone while I finish supper, and don't even think about asking me about that thrice damned letter. If it was meant for you, I'll bloody well give it to you, but don't bother me about it if it actually was meant for me. You should know what manners are by now, privacy happens to be a pretty big bloody part of it."

"I- I'm sorry, Harry," Henry mumbled sheepishly, looking very thoroughly chastised for Harry being the one to scold him. "I just _really_ like Amanda Pettlecorn."

"And obsessing over her will you get you where, exactly?" Harry demanded, and Henry tucked his head even further with a grimace, conspicuously silent. Harry nodded. " _Precisely_. It really isn't as hard as you and your little buddies make it out to be. If you really like her, go up to her in the hall and talk to her. Don't bother her if she doesn't want to talk to you though, if she says no, it means _no more_. God, you're old enough to wank now, how the bloody hell haven't you figured out a strategy to talk to all the girls yet?" He exclaimed, rather bluntly, ever so slightly exasperated with the little boy he called his younger brother.

Even if Tom had dominated the largest portion of his sex life, it hadn't stopped the steamy, sticky fumblings in abandoned classrooms and cleaning cubbies with a small number of girls and guys – the rebellious stage of his perverse relationship with Tom, one could call it. A sort of one fingered salute to the man every time he'd so much as kissed someone else.

He'd long established a strategy earlier on in getting into the pants of anyone he'd wanted, even if it was mostly based off of the times he had with Tom and the people he was intimate with were of the more undisclosed, secretive kind. It was probably due to the knowledge that Harry could reveal just how quick they were to come when touched by him, and the subsequent blow to their reputation that would make that they kept quiet.

Nearly every guy he'd wanked or sucked off had loved the twist he gave their knobs, right at the spongy helmet, or the way his tongue dabbled delicately at their frenulum. They never lasted very long in his highly capable hands.

 _Or our mouth,_ muttered James.

The girls, he'd learned as he'd gone along, as Tom didn't exactly have any girl parts for him to practice on. He was proud to admit that he'd made his fair share of girls orgasm from just using his fingers, although it was his tongue that most prized. Friends of friends had often requested he use his tongue instead, and who had Harry been to deny them?

 _Lucky we're getting back together, Dumpty,_ sneered James, though it sounded more sultry than anything else. _All that emotionless thinking made us into a slut. I'd like to think we'll be even more accomplished **with** emotions._

 _We're not touching anyone else for a quite a long while, thank you very much,_ Harry told himself firmly. _I think we're done being fucked for now._

 _Right bloke comes along..._ James sang coyly. _We won't be in my pants for long..._

 _That is one of the most dimwitted things you've ever said to me,_ Harry remarked flatly. _And it's **my** body you're talking about someone fucking, don't forget. Anyone that tries to fuck me without permission will be dead before they know it._

 _Good boy,_ James sneered in annoyance. _Now if you'd only apply that reasonably thought out logic to our current situation, life would be so much better. Tom-free and us able to fuck anything we like._

 _Shut up._

Henry blushed viciously from the neck up, his cheeks reddening to the point of being considered tomatoes. Harry almost worried the boy might blow a blood vessel. "W- wank! I- I don't _wank!_ " He stammered, self-consciously shifting about and playing with his hair. "That's disgusting, Harry! Don't ever say that to me again!"

Harry marveled at just how red Henry's skin could become, whilst grinning in amusement at the hastily denied 'accusation'. He was just beginning to experiment, then. "It's alright to do it, you know," he told him laughingly, to Henry's horrified embarrassment. "It's natural. I do it on the odd occasion, and I'm sure your friends do it non-stop. It's OK to do it."

"R- really?" Henry haltingly said, attempting and very obviously failing to sound casual. "I mean – well, isn't it bad? I always thought Mum'd beat the shite out of me if she caught me doing it. It's always so sticky and hard to clean up when I - and I _really_ don't want Mum to catch me – er, _in the act._ "

"She hasn't caught me so far, and I've been doing it for ages," Harry pointed out logically, if a bit stonily. For being so observant, she hadn't caught him with Tom on the many occasions the man had improvised and 'taught him his place'."And all you need are some conveniently placed tissues. Unless you save it for the shower..."

Henry gave a shoddy nod in understanding, before his lips suddenly tipped down in a frown. "I've been having these, well, er, _special_ kind of dreams lately and I keep waking up covered in ..." he trailed off uncertainly, grimacing. "And I know you shouldn't be the one to tell me all this, and that Dad should be - or Tom, at least, but I kind of trust you the most right now and I can't exactly tell Mum, and ..."

"And I've already gone through all that?" Harry offered kindly, to Henry's stark relief. "You're just having wet dreams, Henry, everyone gets them at this age," he said reassuringly. "If you wake up sticky, just give your boxers a rinse off in the shower and sneak them into the wash when you're done. Mum won't notice, that way."

"And if she catches me?"

"Stop, and pray she didn't see anything," Harry simply said, shrugging.

"That's it?" Henry asked blandly.

"That's it," Harry agreed cheerfully, before giving the savory scented air a quick sniff and blinking in remembrance of the food still cooking. He darted round Henry and began climbing the stairs at a fast pace. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to get back to dinner before it all burns. Stew, y'know, it gets a bit temperamental when you don't pay it any attention..."

"Hope your friends don't expect to get any!" Henry called to his retreating back. "I'm awfully hungry tonight, and I feel in the mood for thirds!"

"Plenty to go around, dear brother!" Harry called back absently. He was in a somewhat good mood now, having his younger brother look to him for guidance – to _trust_ him. "And don't touch any of that food down there, or you'll ruin your appetite!"

"Yes, Dad," echoed quietly up the stairs, and even though if turned the contents in his stomach to bubbles, Harry didn't stop his target destination.

That was the second time someone had joked about him being his Dad.

 **-oOoOoOo-**

"Supper was delicious, Harry," said Hermione kindly, smiling that soft, affectionate smile of hers that always made Harry feel warm inside. She may have been one to eat healthy, and to abhor sweets, but she was certainly doing her best to tuck every morsel of food in a much more graceful image of Ron. "I still can't believe how good you can cook, for having only two years of Hogwarts cooking classes under your belt! You could become a culinary genius in your time when you graduate. I can just see thousands lining up to eat in any restaurant you decide to cook in, all begging for one scrap of your recipes."

"Yes, it was quite satisfactory, wasn't it?" Draco drawled, to the annoyed, resigned amusement of Hermione. Ron merely grunted and continued munching on one of the treats the blonde had brought. It was one of the most expensive sweets in their part of the country, and was most likely something Ron would never be able to taste for a very long time. "I don't know about a culinary genius, per se, but he certainly could become a gourmet chef of sorts. I know my mother would rather enjoy his food, if it is truly anything like it was tonight. Father would suggest something of a more plainer leaning. Like soup."

"Your Dad doesn't like steak?" Ron abruptly blustered, almost spraying the melted treat all over the elegant platter Draco had brought.

An angular blonde eyebrow crawled upward, as Draco stared at Ron blandly, clearly unimpressed. "My _Father_ has a tolerance for meat that can easily be exceeded if too rich or too chewy. In other words, no. He prefers the lighter, more graceful, smoother dishes. such as soups. Mother, on the other hand, rather enjoys a hearty steak, or some sort of meat with every meal she has. I hardly ever see her order anything devoid of meat – the more, the better, as she so often says."

"Well, if you'd like, she could come round for supper somewhen," Harry offered, though it was more out of obligation than anything else. He felt quite awkward about the praise.

Draco tipped his silvery blonde head in an acknowledging nod. "I shall inform her of your invitation at a later date," he stated formally. Ron snorted in disgust.

"Er, thanks, Draco," Harry muttered, shifting a scolding glare Ron's way when the blonde wasn't looking. Ron didn't even have the decency to feel ashamed, for he merely offered a shrug in response and picked up another sweet.

"So, I think we should get on with what you've been hiding, Harry," Hermione suddenly declared, looking as if she'd been wanting to say those words for a long time. She ignored Harry's spluttering, nervous cough. "We've been wasting enough time anyway. It's almost ten-thirty and we're all getting quite tired. Besides, we still have school in the morning, and we'll all have to be up incredibly early if we each want to grab a shower."

"We might have to share," Ron leered, curling his upper lip at a disgusted, sneering Draco.

"I'd rather share with Harry if it's a choice out of all you three," sniffed Draco primly. "At least I know where he's been and what he's done."

"And that's the crux of the situation," said Hermione hurriedly, before Ron could make another of his quips. "You obviously know what's made Harry change so drastically from his formerly happy-go-lucky self, and we deserve – _want_ to know as well."

"Like we should," grunted Ron.

"So it's out of a sense of entitlement that you pry into Harry's vulnerable problems," drawled Draco, almost casually, for the flash of steel in his eyes. "Lovely lot you two are. I'm sure if he hadn't changed quite so much, you'd have both been so stuck in your ways that you wouldn't have suspected a thing had happened. Disgusting, the both of you. Harry doesn't deserve either of you."

"We care about him, more than any of your brainless lackeys care for you!" spat Hermione fiercely. "I'm worried because he's never been like this before, so whatever has got his back up like this has to be incredibly serious. Anything less, and we'd already know about it. Now you can either tell me, or I can take what I need to know forcefully."

Harry grimaced at the thunderous look on Draco's face, and hurried to interrupt before an all out brawl began. "It's nothing pleasant, you have to realize?" He said. "It's guaranteed to give you nightmares for weeks, __months__ even - years if you don't try to distance yourself from it. I'm not exaggerating anything or embellishing things to make it out to be worse than it is, I'm telling you that what you want to know isn't for the faint-hearted. At least, before you dive head first into something you can't handle, you'll understand."

"It can't possibly be that bad," said Hermione, if a little uncertainly. She looked to Draco plaintively. "Surely even if you can cope with it, it's not __so__ bad.. Right?"

Draco merely looked at her.

Ron's azure eyes batted between all three with a suspicious frown, visibly unsure if he should add his thought to the tension riddled air or not. Harry seemed fine enough, considering it was his life they were talking about, but the redhead could sense the unease and anxiety wreaking havoc in his mind. It was his duty as bestmate to cheer him up, or at least to get the worse for wear parts of life done and dusted.

"Well, do you mind actually telling us what's going on, or are we supposed to guess?" The redhead barked impatiently.

Draco eyed him distastefully for a moment, before turning a shrewd gaze on Harry. "Did you bring it with you?"

Harry nodded, looking somewhat lost to how he should proceed. But eventually, he pealed back his blanket just enough to retrieve his bulging black journal, clenching it between his fingers to keep one of the photos from slipping free from somewhere in the middle. He shoved it back in hurriedly. It was a messy, jumbled and unorganized thing in legibility, but it was in the correct order of dates and it was accurate in the way of evidence. How messy and screwdriver-like his writing was didn't matter, so much as what the words meant and the pictures showed.

At least he hoped so, he didn't exactly want to go back and rewrite the damn thing.

It made him feel that age old dread to think of handing it all over to his two innocent, ignorant best mates. He'd been trying so hard to keep his misery from bothering them for years, especially with Tom breathing down his neck all the time. And it tasted like a mouthful of coal and lead on his tongue at the thought of revealing everything, after years of suffering in silence. He couldn't bear the thought of bringing _Him_ and all _His_ shit down on them.

If Hermione or Ron said something out of ignorance to _anyone,_ Tom would find out. The man was paranoid enough to have eyes and ears everywhere around him.

"I think Hermione should go last," Harry blurted out, and flushed a dull pink from the base of his neck to the tips of his ears when he received sharp looks from all three of his friends. Even Draco frowned at him uncomprehendingly.

Hermione herself looked betrayed and particularly hurt by that, but he didn't say it to spite any of them, least of all _Hermione_ – but she wouldn't take long enough to absorb what was in there. Unlike Ron, whom took the average amount of time to read through something and understand it. Hermione would take in every scrap of knowledge from that journal in one single punch, and she was an incredibly soft, maternal person who sometimes cared too much for people who didn't rightly deserve it. What was in there was absolutely horrific, and he couldn't stand it to think of how it could change her.

How it'd change him.

"No, really," he insisted. "It won't take Ron all that long, and it'll give Hermione more time to understand what she'll be seeing. She'll be taking it all in, in one go, remember?" He said stiffly, mostly to Draco than to Ron or Hermione. Neither would understand it until they'd read the journal each respectably.

"I'll be fine to read it first," said Hermione, rather affronted.

"Oh, no you won't," said Draco silkily, eyebrows hanging heavy over intense grey eyes. "Knowing you and your _pathetic_ little morals, you'll take this as a direct hit to your... _heart_ ," he sneered the very word as if it was one of the most disgusting things in the world, and Hermione's lips thinned, "as well as your mind. The Weasel shall read it first, as Harry has said."

"Is there something wrong with having a heart, Malfoy?" asked Hermione, quite levelly for the murderous expression on her face. "I'm certain, seeing as you'd never acknowledged the existence of your own pitiful excuse of one, that reading whatever secrets lay within that diary hit you quite hard. I'd imagine you cried tears of blood."

"It's a _journal!_ " exclaimed Draco and Harry both, although Draco's lips were curved in a sarcastic little grin, and Harry was near palming his face in frustration.

Hermione merely shrugged indifferently, still intent on Draco's answer.

Draco sighed, as if put upon. "I may have cried, as you said, _tears of blood_ , oh Tender-hearted one," mocked the blonde in a voice like silk. "But I'd like you to read all of that and remain dry-eyed. It's practically impossible to do so, knowing it's all true and has happened to one of your very own best friends. And I may not have a heart open like a book for just anyone's perusal, Granger, but I do have one. It's just hidden from those I deem unworthy of knowing it."

"What do you have in there that could make _Malfoy_ cry?" Ron asked Harry, frowning deeply in consternation. "Did you hit him with it? Did you nail his hand to the desk? What did you _do?_ "

 _What_ did _I do?_

 _You didn't kill the bloody bastard,_ James readily supplied, if a bit subdued. _If you had, all this would've been deemed an unnecessary idea and you'd be enjoying the sunny days, shirtless and fucking guys and girls with reckless abandon. You should've followed your instincts instead of ignore them._

 _I don't want to be a murderer, like you seem to want to be,_ Harry hissed.

 _No, you want to be a martyr. I just want to survive,_ James said plainly.

"I didn't do anything," Harry muttered, to Ron's steadily increasing bemusement. His fingers played with the stressed leather cover, toying at the ripped corner delicately. He'd have to get a new journal soon. "It's what was done to me. It'll mess with your head."

"Pass it here then," Ron said, and held his hand aloft with a trusting but concerned smile on his pale, freckled face. His grin faltered slightly at Harry's obvious reluctance, but he kept his hand no less outstretched. "Come on, Harry, it'll take me years to finish it if you wait any longer. As Hermione said, we have school in the morning, and all that."

Harry inhaled deeply, feeling his throat constrict in a deep-seated bed of panic, but he nonetheless slowly slid the journal into Ron's hand. It felt like he'd just passed a vial of the world's deadliest poison into the hand's of his clumsiest best friend.

And in some ways, he had.

"You'll be fine," Draco said quietly. It didn't surprise Harry to find the blonde sitting a lot closer to him than before, almost hugging his side. "Just breathe and – and think of happy thoughts. It will all be fine."

Harry looked down at him strangely. "You read a book about comforting people, didn't you?" He muttered lowly, amused.

The blonde grimaced at that, left eye twitching oddly. "I shall never live down having to buy one of those horrid _self-help_ books from Twillis and Bonds, Potter," he said loftily. "And the blame lay at your feet for pushing me to do so. When I next feel like reading an explicit magazine from some low-life drugstore, I shall have you fetch me one – as repayment for my own shameful errand, of course. Then I shall have you read it at Hogwarts, in the Great Hall."

"That's a bit harsh," Harry mused. "Maybe I can buy two magazines, and we can both read them there?"

"Not on your life," said Draco flatly.

"What on earth are you two nattering on about?" Hermione exclaimed, astounded – if a bit bemused. "Dirty magazines? Self-help books? What have you two been getting up to when Ron and I aren't here?"

"Oh, nothing to mind your abnormally large head about, m'dear," drawled Draco. "Just a little inside joke between two best friends, is all."

Hermione wisely chose not to reply, though she gave Harry a very tense look that spoke a thousand angry volumes.

"I – I think I'm done now," Ron abruptly said, and Harry turned in time to see Ron slowly shut the journal, looking ghostly and world-weary, his freckles standing out like never before. Thick, fat tears rolled down pale freckled cheeks unchecked, and if Harry himself weren't so worried about Hermione's possible adverse reaction, he'd have thrown himself at his best mate and hugged him for all his worth. But Ron rarely liked hugging at the best of times, let alone another of his own gender.

Hermione was looking at him as if she'd never seen him before.

"See what I mean?" Draco asked the redhead, though not unkindly, to Hermione's continuing amazement. "I myself reacted in a similar way; Crying like I'd never cried before, and even going so far as to throw myself at Harry. He gives the best hugs," he said, by way of explanation when Hermione, Harry and even Ron stared at him.

Ron sniffled loudly, lifting a hand to wipe blearily at his reddened eyes. "I don't like hugs," he admitted awkwardly. "But.. I could go one after reading – that."

An amazing smile lit up Harry's face, and before even Harry knew what he was doing, he was shuffling to Ron's side and pulling the teary redhead into a big hug. Ron held tight to him much in the same way Draco had, stuffing his face into the crook of the uninjured side of Harry's neck and wrapping his arms tight around Harry's shoulders. It made something in Harry's chest unwind and relax.

"You don't have to ask for a hug if you want one," Harry whispered into the redhead's hair, and smiled when Ron's grip tightened for just a second.

"You know, you're quite paternal for being so young," Harry heard Draco muse, and frowned at the way Ron tensed in the circle of his arms. "Perhaps I should like a hug as well."

Ron suddenly reared back from Harry in dismay, dislodging the raven-haired teen so violently, he was flung forward with the red-head's motions and they both went tumbling into a mound of blankets and pillows, fortuitously plastic bowls of chocolate flying in their wake and raining down a chocolate delight on the upright gaping teenagers. Hermione was absolutely astounded.

Draco snickered wildly, the most uncouth display of the night yet. "That was wonderful!" He cried. " _Bravissimo!_ Encore, encore!"

"Oh, do shut up, Malfoy. They could have been seriously hurt!" Hermione shrilled, watching in avid concern as Ron tenderly moved a grimacing Harry upright once more. "I think Harry's hurt enough as it is. He looks a bit banged up."

"That's from the old bastard, Tom," Ron sneered at them.

"Ron, don't say such a thing!" Hermione exclaimed, shocked. "Mr Riddle wouldn't harm Harry, he's going to be his Step-father soon!"

"It's fucking true!" Ron seethed, jabbing a finger at the black journal that had taken a tumble in Draco's direction. "That monster's been molesting, raping and abusing Harry ever since he was twelve! It's all in there, in black and white – and in fucking _photographs_ , too!"

Tears filled Hermione's eyes unbidden, but Harry couldn't look at her for the life of him. He was too ashamed. Even as pain smacked him from all sides of his body, especially his bottom, which was ever more grateful for the cushy padding on the floor, it was the pain inside the made it all the worse. He couldn't bear to witness the affection in Hermione's eyes be crushed by the weight of such horrible things.

"Pick up the journal, Granger," Harry heard Draco say calmly, and he felt a flicker of alarm deep in the pit of his gut. "But be wary. Those pages aren't filled with daffodils and daisies, they're filled with the most horrible experiences I've ever had the misfortune of reading."

Harry heard Hermione hesitantly pick the journal up, and cringed when he felt the blankets jerk sharply – a consequence of her body stiffening rapidly. It took mere seconds for her to begin outright sobbing, and a full minute before Harry forced his body to move and wrap around her securely, tucking her face into his neck and crooning into her ear. Another set of arms wound around him and bracketed Hermione in, and a chin dropped down on his shoulder. He could see Ron's teary face in his peripheral vision; the owner of those long, gangly arms.

"Oh, _bugger,_ " Harry heard Draco snark to himself, and before Harry could so much as warn Ron of the blonde's intentions, yet another set of arms snaked around them, and Draco's pointed chin settled on the side of his injured neck.

The tightening of Ron's arms was the only sign he'd noticed Draco's new position, and Harry had to appreciate the mature gesture for what it was. Hermione was still sobbing in his arms, a terrible sound that he never wanted to hear ever again in his life, and her tears had yet to slow. She clutched onto him like her life depended on it, patting his chest as if reassuring herself he was still there and whole, and even pressing a kiss or two to his clavicle in apology. She hadn't yet noticed that one of Draco's and Ron's hands were settled on her arm – or perhaps she had, and that was why she wasn't completely breaking down.

There were too many words to describe the woeful situation – sad, desperately heart-breaking, upsetting, distressful. Yet Harry had one word that summed up the entire night for himself; _Perfect_. For this proved, without a shadow of a doubt, that Ron and Hermione would stick with him through the worst and the best. Even if the worst was his rapist and abuser, soon to be Step-father, moving in with him and having twenty-four hour access to him and his bedroom.

It astounded him that he really actually needn't have worried all these years about Ron and Hermione finding him disgusting and repugnant, they accepted him, knowing that he'd been defiled and touched in such a way since he was but a boy by someone he should have deemed a Father. It had been a challenge he'd issued without proper cause other than paranoia.

Although, now that it had been blown to bits by their strong loyalty, the _real_ challenge would begin in the morrow when they returned to school; whether Ron or Hermione would tell someone about his troubles.

"Not a word, Potter, Weasel," muttered the blonde sulkily, but no less kindly for the benefit of Hermione. "Not, a, _word_."


	4. Chapter 4

**WARNINGS: Violence, Coarse Language, Kidnapping, Some Minor Wounds.**

 **I'm not too sure about the Original guy that sneakily jumped into the fray... He seems nuttier than a fruitcake, and has more sides to his face than any gossiper I know.**

 **Don't be afraid to leave a review down below and tell me how I'm doing so far, it'd be much appreciated!**

 **Enjoy!**

 **-oOoOoOo-**

 **Chapter Four  
** **Heathens**

" _...- can't believe you – I just fucking cannot believe you! Where's your bloody head and sense gone, Lily? You're being fucking stupid these days, it's a wonder you were ever a duck of the school back in our heyday!"_

 _Harry peered through the crack in the door nervously, just above the handle, with wide eyes and a wildly thumping heart. He'd heard muffled shouting from his room all the way down the hall, and sneaked out to find the cause of it. It wasn't an oddity for Lily and James to have a heated debate this time of night, of course, but it sounded a lot angrier than usual – more of an argument than a debate. He'd hushed and pushed a bleary-eyed Henry back into his room on the way down, and he glanced back just in case the younger boy had tried to sneak out again._

 _He hadn't._

 _With his broad-shouldered back to him, James was a figure of muscle and litheness that came with running on the job – not a desk job like some of the parents his friends had. But the real attention-grabber of the room was his Mum. She was roughly handling one of her many pillows, shaking it out violently to get it back in shape. Her clothes were a mess, as if she'd pulled on them stressfully, and her hair was a tangled mop spilling down her back._

 _She was glowering at James viciously, rather like a cat that's got its back up._

" _'Can't believe me'? What have I done that was so wrong, James?" She asked angrily, smacking the pillow down on the bed like she was beating it to death. "I was only talking with a friend –"_

" _With someone you knew liked you in a non-platonic way!" James shouted. "Sirius saw him hug you – and before you even ask, he said it was like a hug from a lover, not a friendly hug. He told me -"_

" _He told you something that would play on your mind for hours and get you riled up and angry, like it's doing now!" Lily exclaimed, chucking her pillow on the bed irately. It left her hands free, and left her attention to jump fully to James. "You don't trust me – you've_ _ **never**_ _trusted me, despite me choosing you time and time again when there have been better men -"_

" _'Better men'? What the hell do you mean by that, Lily? What do you fancy yourself, some kind of fucking judge for who's the most richest and pretty?" James snapped, sounding just that little bit upset, before it gave way to hurt, and those shoulders slumped. Tears touched Harry's eyes as he watched on in dismay, although he didn't exactly understand what was happening – what was unfolding in front of him. "Aren't I enough for you anymore? Are you so fed up with your life with me that you'd resort to breaking your vows? I – I hardly recognize you anymore, Lily – you wear make-up more than ever, you go out for long hours and come back late, you talk with – with all these_ guys _, and you_ lie _to me all the time. Do you even love me anymore?"_

" _I don't know," Lily whispered tensely, meticulously not looking at James, but at the flowery bedspread. She picked at a loose thread, and James's shoulder seemed to slump even more. "Perhaps we thought we were in love in the beginning, but now.. We're realizing that all we ever had was friendship. And now we don't even have that."_

" _But I do love you, Lily," James said hoarsely. "I know I do, I feel it in my heart every day – every morning I woke up with you in my arms. I miss seeing your smile every day I'm at work, and I miss seeing you at home when I come home to you and our boys. But you're never here anymore. It's like you're just a ghost – a memory. You've just gone and disappeared on me, and left this gollum in your wake."_

" _People change all the time, it's a fact that's been largely expounded upon this day and age," Lily dared to utter, not lifting those luminous, expressive emerald orbs to look at her crumbling husband – to watch him as she delivered the fell blow. "I just.. changed at the wrong time. Or perhaps it's you that's changed, and you're only just now realizing who I am."_

" _No," whispered James. "I think you were a different person all along. I was just blind and thick enough to want it."_

"Wake up!"

Harry startled badly, eyes shooting open in shock as a hand gripped his shoulder tightly. Leaning over him was Draco's blonde head – a concerned and worried expression on his face, and he was even biting his lower lip! Such an uncouth and uncharacteristic display tugged at his nerves immediately, and Harry shoved the blonde away in a bid to get up when he imagined that Hermione might be having an unwanted dream.

No such luck.

Instead, Hermione and Ron were sitting side by side by the couch, just staring unblinkingly at the stairs. There were muffled voices coming from above, he realized, sounding very tense and strained – and incredibly familiar. Recognition filtered in in small increments, but it wasn't until he heard a particularly terse phrase that he got an image of the person in mind.

Tom was here, at an incredibly late hour in the night, and had woken Lily up.

 _He could have come down here while we were sleeping and seen the Journal,_ James whispered tensely, misty hackles rising up in apprehension.

"Has he come down here yet?" Harry asked them quietly.

Hermione shook her head and Ron shrugged helplessly, but Draco's pale, stressed face took on a more thoughtful look. But then, he too slowly shook his head. "I don't know," he whispered. "I would have woken up if I'd heard anything, but Mr. Riddle is incredibly quiet on his feet. I didn't know he was here until I'd heard his voice, and then I woke you up."

"I was already awake when he woke up, but I only woke up when I heard Mrs. Evans talking," Hermione mumbled to no one in particular, eyes obviously avoiding looking at any of them. No one questioned her.

"'Mione woke me up just as Malfoy crawled over to you, Mate," Ron whispered, looking helpless and clueless. Hermione settled a hand on his arm – which gripped him firmly when Tom's voice filtered down a little clearer.

Harry closed his eyes tightly. "There's only one way to find out, then," he murmured, and quietly began searching for the little black Journal in the sea of blankets and pillows. Hermione, Ron and even Draco began helping him when they realized what he was looking for, tearing away at their beds and searching under the couch for the thing.

They did so as quietly as they could, in case Tom heard them and decided to pay them all an incredibly unwanted visit.

But even as they turned everything upside down, nothing small and rectangular fell out of anywhere. The Journal was missing. Harry felt like his entire chest cavity was imploding in on itself; His heart was beating heavier and faster than ever before, and his lungs felt like they were being squeezed by Fear itself. But beneath all that, his emotions swam to the surface in a coil of immeasurable strength and size, James the voice screaming in his head random words and commands that seemed to not only sooth the writhing coil, but to reinforce it.

He felt like Death could take him, and he wouldn't care.

He was all but dead anyway if Tom had his Journal with him.

"It's not here," whimpered Hermione, her face pale in the darkness and tears shining in her eyes. "Oh God, he was down here. He saw all of us down here! He could have touched any one of us!"

"He wouldn't have," Draco, of all people, hurried to assure her, beating even Harry to the punch. "I would have heard him approach any one of us, much less felt him shifting the blankets around any of us. I promise you."

"But the diary was by Harry, and he was the furthest away from us _and_ closest to the stairs, he could have touched him whilst we were sleeping and we wouldn't have known it!" Hermione persisted, somehow managing to look even more frightened and teary-eyed than before. Draco didn't look confident enough to continue, and Ron even less so.

But Harry was sure that Tom hadn't touched him, as not only was he a light sleeper, but he would have woken up almost immediately if he'd been touched – especially by _Tom_. And he said as much. It was practically impossible.

Hermione seemed almost strangely comforted by that, if not for the fear that still made her shake and weep. Ron snaked an arm around her shoulders in an effort to give her some solid comfort, a silent solitude that she could rest against if she felt like she was about to crumble again. She practically collapsed into his side, her bushy brown hair spilling messily on the redhead's chest.

Harry wasn't proud to admit to himself that he felt bad for her.

But he didn't dare speak to comfort her, as, abruptly, the voices silenced upstairs and footsteps were heard marking their way toward the basement door. They sat stewing in the fearful silence that it took the person to get to the door, and Harry couldn't help but hold his breath in anticipation as it creaked open, and artificial light shone down the stairs. A stretched, distorted shadow appeared in the center of it, but he couldn't tell who it was.

He hoped it was his Mum.

"Harry," Tom's sibilant voice floated down the stairs, and Harry balked at how dense and strong it was – as if he stood in front of them himself. "I know you're awake. Come upstairs, Son. We need to have a little talk."

No one said a thing, they were all holding their breath in fear and stomach-curdling apprehension. Harry was the worst of them, knowing that the Journal held every single account they'd had together, and what that evidence was for. It didn't take a genius to work it out – and unfortunately, Tom wasn't stupid enough to think it was merely for sentimental value. And that book was missing.

"Harry," Tom's voice became stronger, more firm and held a hint of a direct order. Harry almost immediately hastened to obey, not just in a bid to lessen whatever blows would befall him later, but out of habit - despite Hermione's squeak of fear, and the grabs both Draco and Ron made for him. He was already climbing the stairs – and there Tom stood. "Come here."

Harry made his way up slowly, inching his way closer to the dark figure stood at the threshold – holding a familiar little bulging black book in his right hand. Harry's heart sank at the sight, and he knew without a doubt that Tom was one angry bastard. Worse than he'd ever seen him, in fact. Even his shadow was trembling with anger.

He'd barely made it to Tom's stomach when a thin, long hand shot out and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. He was practically dragged up the last two stairs, and yet even closer until Tom was glowering right into his face. He looked even angrier close up – Lily had obviously disappeared, and Henry was nowhere near them. There was no one but his friends to see anything - which they both knew couldn't, as the stairs went up a long way, and the other three knew better than to stick their heads out.

Tom smiled at him then, and Harry couldn't help but notice that it looked delirious and more than a bit snarl-like than any true smile of his. Fear curdled in his belly like sour milk. "Imagine my surprise when I come to visit my lover, late in the evening, only to find a mysterious little black book filled with all the effects of our passions over the years, spread out for just anyone's perusal on the floor by his side," he began in a silky voice, but with an unmistakable hard, knife-like edge sheathed beneath the soft tones. "Amidst a sprawl of your friends, no less. Now, imagine my shock to find out my lover had not only written about our encounters in the crudest form from the very beginning, but had actually _photographed_ them. Not a very pleasant feeling, is it?"

"I was just -" Harry began, but his vocal chords seemed to fail him. He'd never seen Tom like this – so angry and violent, yet restrained in the worst sense. He'd have rathered Tom beat him like he usually would, than this state.

"Don't, say, _a word_ ," Tom finally seethed, dropping the smile for an all out snarl. His hand tightened and Harry drifted perilously close to the back of the step. He closed his eyes tightly to delay the wave of vertigo that gave him. "You have been a very, very naughty little boy, Harry James Potter. And naughty little boys get punished. You've been toeing a very fine line ever since I'd laid eyes on you – and you have _broken it._ "

"What would you like me to do?" Harry whispered, despite Tom's seething warning pulsing like hot coals in his mind to keep quiet.

"Fall," Tom said simply.

Harry looked at him in confusion – and felt his entire system of organs fall to his toes as Tom shoved him brutally backwards, an enraged snarl curling his lips. There was a sickly moment where his foot dangled uselessly behind him, trying desperately to find a step, but there evidently was none. His body slammed into the sharp, cutting stairs under him, and every increment of air in his body escaped him in a harsh cry. He tumbled painfully down the long staircase, feeling every corner and surface bash into his body mercilessly, like he was in a tumble-drier filled with debris of all kinds.

He fell for what felt like forever, and when he finally felt the merciful darkness approaching him, he heard three gut-wrenching screams renting the air and echoing in his mind like endless nails scratching on chalkboards.

He didn't remember anything but feeling his body throb with thundering blood and hearing his heart stampeding out of his ears.

 **-oOoOoOo-**

Harry didn't know where he was, other than _not home._

The ground beneath his back wasn't the hard, slightly cool surface of the basement floor in his house, but instead was freezing and padded by a heavy layer of snow that was wild with sticks and stones, and the air was thick with the strong scents of wood and dirt – completely out of place for being anywhere near home. He wasn't in his house, and he was aching and throbbing all over from the hideous tumble he'd taken. He could tell that it was still night by the confident cooes of the night-owls nested nearby, and with the steady stream of comforting murmurs from James in his mind, he remained calm by the very skin of his teeth.

But that wasn't to say that he wasn't aware of any others around him.

"Good, you're awake," said a distinctly uncaring voice. "I was almost afraid you'd fallen too hard. But, then again, you did slip through my arms whenever we passed a ditch or two, as well. You certainly are a very slippery boy, Harry. When you least want to be, of course."

"Where am I?" He asked hoarsely, eyes still shut against the forceful, frigid winds despite the threatening presence of Tom. His lips were probably blue by now, even with the large black jumper and jacket clothing him, and the long sweatpants covering his thick sock clad feet.

But then again, no number of layers of clothing can really make the freezing wind warmer.

Harry's body rolled somewhat stiffly with the anticipated kick from Tom, and the cold thankfully took some of the pain away from his smarting gut with its numbing fingers.

"I didn't say you could speak, Boy."

"Too bad," Harry managed out through his chattering teeth. "You kidnap me, I get to s-speak."

"Oh, I didn't kidnap you, Harry," Tom said silkily. Harry jerked uncontrollably when warm fingers caressed his cheek in an oddly soothing downward stroke. It made him feel queasy in his belly. "I just eliminated the distraction Lily and your Brother gave you, to give you more time for me. I've had a little cottage made, just for you and I to share out here. Just us, with none of the other _distractions_ to disturb us. Of course, I still have to manage your Mother and Henry, but you'll find it especially comfortable to live in. It's near a lake, and I know how much you love those – though you don't want to go swimming now, the mere shock of the cold water could stop your heart in an instant."

"Y- you're leaving me here?" Harry stuttered out, eyes shocked open into a stare of horror, despite the knife-like feeling of the wind stabbing them. Tom was leaning over him like an Angel of Death, or a demon of the night, cloaked in a heavy black coat and hood that revealed his pointed pale face in the moonlight, and made those dark, possessive eyes juxtaposed into two dark pits in his eye sockets. His thin lips were tinted blue, despite being cuddled by all that fabric and wool, but they stretched into a shark-like grin.

"I did mention you being mine, I'm sure," he said loftily, those eyes swallowing the image of Harry, bruised and ruffled, splayed out in the snow before him like a little Fallen Angel. Harry shivered violently, partly to the snow melting and seeping into his clothes, and partly to that gaze. "I couldn't have those little imbeciles you call friends and family to take up all of your time. You are mine, Harry dear, and only I can say who shall look upon you and take up your time, and who won't. And I say they won't," he said, in a simple and factual manner that both horrified and stupefied Harry.

 _ _Oh, fuck off,__ said James in an exasperatedly horrified voice. __He can't be serious – he's expecting us to live out here in some hut like a beast? What the actual fuck goes on in his head? Where does he come up with these things?!__

 _ _Obviously from that book – Misery,__ _Harry groaned._

"I - I can't go missing," he whispered through numb lips, voice straining to be heard above the wind. "They'll know.."

"They will know nothing," Tom said soothingly, but to Harry's mind, his voice was far too thin and threatening to be anything but that. A dark light glimmered in those depths. "Because I say they won't. Just like you will not tell, or show, if you want to count that hideous little black diary you kept – which is now burnt to ash, mind, another living soul about our relationship. You will live off my companionship, and only that of my companionship, and you will stay out here for the rest of our days together."

"B-but I don't want t-to leave Mum and H-Henry," he cried haltingly, hot tears building quick and fiercely in his eyes and blurring the bottom half of Tom's torso. He was too horrified to think of anything else – such as that of the injuries he sustained from falling down those stairs. He couldn't even think of his friends. "I n-need them!"

"You need me and only me!" said Tom fiercely, a pale blur of his hand striking quick as a viper to snatch at his fear-clogged throat. The fleshy pad of his thumb wormed threateningly around his Adams apple, and Harry swallowed automatically at the sensation. It wouldn't have been the first time Tom had strangled him – and boy, how hard it was to keep that covered. "They don't need you anymore, Harry. Don't you see? They're not even looking for you, they don't care about what happens to you – it was all a farce. It's all about Henry and James to Lily, even when the latter Potter isn't here anymore to care for them. You were shoved aside when you needed love the most.

"And I can do that, Harry, I can dedicate the rest of our lives to _you_ , to us," he breathed, bending down until the top of his freezing nose touched Harry's. They were so close, and yet Harry felt nothing but absolute horror and devastation instead of the usual fear and urge to live another day. He knew it couldn't be true, but it still felt.. real. "We can be one," he whispered softly, their heated breaths mixing in large visible clouds surrounding their heads, before the window siphoned away at the heat, and carried them away.

Harry was frozen, in more than one sense. It wasn't true – it couldn't possibly be. Lily and Henry were probably looking for him right now – they had to have heard him falling down those stairs, and the fearful screams of his friends! The house was big, but it wasn't big enough to mistake or not hear a person screaming – let alone three pairs of lungs. But, he was still out here, alone with Tom in the freezing snow with no one following them. They had to have seen Tom carrying him out, if that's how they got out here – and if Tom's words could be believed. How could he be out here if Tom was wrong and they actually were looking for him?

The answer was plain and clear, despite being so heart-wrenching and devastating a blow.

They weren't looking for him.

Harry was alone, yet again, when he needed them. Not even the back-up plan of going to his Father would work.

What good was there of telling his Dad about the abuse when he wouldn't be saved in the end?

"I don't know if I can trust you again after discovering that little diary you kept of my love-taps," Tom murmured, tilting his head to the side to run his ice-like nose down Harry's rosy cheek. A stiff kiss was pressed to his jaw. He didn't take any notice. "So I shall have a client of mine watch you every night, until I gain the confidence that you will not hide, or fight, or flee from me. He bites," he said silkily into his ear, those sharp teeth nibbling at his lobe. "So I wouldn't suggest doing either."

"I won't," Harry mumbled, breath unwillingly catching in his throat from the insane cold and the harsh nips to his ear. Tom's hand was still on his throat.

"Of course not," Tom agreed easily, reluctantly enough releasing him and rising from his knees. Harry felt no relief. He'd agreed too easily. "But why take the chance?"

A heavy looking boot flew at his face and Harry knew no more.

 **-oOoOoOo-**

When Harry next awoke, he was in a small, slightly warmer than outside hut – which looked rather like a modern, well built tree-house than anything remotely cottage-like on the inside. Well, from what he could see; The only light in the room was the muted moonlight filtering in through the frosted window. He gathered from his position, that he was laying on a slim heat-conducting mattress on a bunk of sorts, suspended some feet from the floor by sturdy planks of wood and stone. It was a small mercy that Tom was smart enough to provide him with enough blankets and pillows to keep warm without a fire...

Which was what he would have to make himself, if the filled, but unlit hearth opposite him had anything to say.

"Fucking damn it," he grunted wearily, voice catching more than once from the freezing temperatures around him, and the horrid cobwebs in his throat that Tom always left. His head was achy, his finger tips and toes numb, and he had an inkling that he was going to end up extremely sick from overexposure to snow – and that's not even mentioning the aches and pains left over from that horrible tumble, and whatever else Tom did to him when he was unconscious. His nose was probably broken.

But the insult to his injuries was that snow, Tom knew, was an exquisite torture for him – he could fantasize about touching and playing in it all he wanted, but the moment he so much as stuck a finger in the pale blankets, he was incredibly sick for a week. So sick he was like the littlest of the kittens, helpless and dependent on others to help him. "Bloody b-bastard."

 _Don't speak out loud anymore, Harry,_ James said, rather vaguely, his unseen eyes scanning the surrounding hut with suspicion. _Just keep quiet and still. We don't know who could be watching us, and we need to really be cautious now._

 _I don't see what talking could possibly harm,_ Harry croaked, voice pained even in his own mind. His body was beginning to throb with pain the longer the cold seeped away from him, and any merciful numbing effects it had had. His clothes had been switched yet again, as well, and the wet jumper, shirt, and trousers were spread out on a small rail nearby – pointedly efficient for hanging wet clothes as it was close to the hearth. _Other than my sanity, of course, seeing as talking to oneself is the first sign of madness. Which I've been doing for how long, now?_

 _I suppose,_ James reluctantly allowed. _But I don't like this, not one bloody bit. We're too vulnerable here – it's too suspicious. Tom only now kidnaps us and leaves us here for dead, when he could have done it when we were twelve? No, he's got something up his sleeve._

 _Gee, well you're the only one that doesn't like this, seeing as I don't have any cognitive thinking or anything,_ Harry sneered sarcastically, physically rolling his eyes, despite the blinding spots that invaded them and the low ache the movement created. James tutted. _I don't see the point in worrying myself to death over the reasons for Tom's madness, I'd never get anywhere if I did. I say we go on with normal, everyday life – minus the school work and responsibilities of wiping Henry's arse for him. If I'm given the choice whether to laugh or go mad about something I have no control over, I'd rather laugh and get over it._

 _Don't be a git, Harry, this is serious! This isn't some fucking game – he's literally left us out here to rot! There are bears out here! Wolves, and other various wild predators big enough to crush bones with their feet!_

 _I am being serious, James!_ Harry snapped, glaring up at the ceiling with those emotive verdant eyes as if he were glowering at the voice in his head. _The way I figure it, if Tom's just going to leave us here to try and rot us in some small hut, I'm going to do my best to prevent it from bloody well happening. Which means actually speaking aloud, and moving about,_ he said, pointedly brushing the blankets aside and swinging his sore body up and around until his aching legs hung over the side of his bunk. James grumbled discontentedly in his head, but didn't say anything in return.

Harry counted that as a win.

"Time to get a fire going," he murmured to himself, sliding carefully over the edge until he was able to cautiously put weight on his feet, and still be able to heave himself back onto the bunk in case he couldn't. He could, which was a blessing as moving around was necessary to surviving in such deplorable weather conditions as these. It was a wonder some wild creature hadn't tried to break in already.

Feeling just a bit paranoid that that could happen, and whilst he was sleeping and defenseless no less, he glanced around to find the door. He blinked at it in surprise, actually dumbfounded at how pristine and glittering the locks were when there was only so much lighting to see with. It was a lot bigger than he imagined a hut door being, but it had a system of locks on it that both surprised and pleased him – made him think that perhaps Tom didn't want him to be eaten in the middle of the night.

And it also made him realize that the hut wasn't as outdated as he originally thought.

"Not gonna be supper for the wee beasties tonight, _no sirree!"_ He sung happily enough, despite feeling like he was exhaling rusty razor blades.

 _Oh, just get a damn fire going already, you're making my head hurt,_ James grumbled grouchily.

Harry paid the pessimist no mind as he hobbled cautiously around the dark hut – which seemed to be a lot bigger than he'd thought, and devoid of the torture instruments James's paranoia was projecting, no matter where he stepped. It spanned easily across at least twenty by thirty meters, and had a small – a _very small_ kitchenette and refrigerating system in the crook of the outer room, most of the space taken up by the combined oven and stove that vaguely looked big enough to make a pizza.

It was actually quite decent, if a bit primitive compared to the kitchen at home, but then again, he could hardly see in the dark, and he was already tired enough. But at least the cupboards lining the wall above them seemed to be stuffed full of inventory.

OK, so it was more of a cabin than a true hut or tree-house, Harry supposed, when he spied a doorway to the left of the kitchenette. He hobbled far enough to make out a small bathroom and walk-in pantry through the darkness, but with each step he took, he felt a daunting wariness that told him he'd hit a wall sometime soon – and painfully. Either rooms seemed larger than what they should be with the unending shadows clogging them, and he palmed the nearest walls in an effort to find any light switches – it was obvious the second he tried it that he wouldn't find any. It was a wooden cabin that had a fireplace, but not a light bulb in sight.

Fortuitously, the very second before he began to despair and resign himself to living in darkness each night, he stumbled by a seemingly endless stack of candles by the walk-in he'd somehow managed to by-pass on the way in. He very quickly snatched three up and held them to his chest, as reassurance if nothing else – and couldn't help but glance into the bathroom, before shivering and teetering and tottering his way back into the main part of the hut.

There had been enough light coming in from the window to let him see that the bathroom had only a shower, sink, mirror and toilet – but it was all glistening clean and luxurious enough to tell him that Tom would be spending a night or two with him, and that he expected to have it in luxury. Harry knew all too well how Tom liked to bathe in only the hottest, longest showers, and take his own time primping in the mirror.

Fending off gray hairs and beating his receding hair line back into shape and such, he reckoned.

And, surprisingly, despite thinking of Tom and the inevitable nights they'd spend together – and tasting a rather acidic, dirty flavor in his mouth, he wasn't completely down in the dumps so as to crawl back into the bunk and stay there for the rest of his life. There were things he had to do, after all, and first thing, he had to make a fire. He at least could do with the light from it than anything else.

He'd just have to find a stick to light the candles, so he could put them in place in the bathroom and walk-in. He couldn't take a crap in the dark, knowing the cabin he was existing in was swallowed whole by a forest filled with creepy critters and crawlies.

Shuddering at the very thought, Harry hobbled around his bunk and – huzzah! Found a tiny fold-up table propped up against the wall, right next to a plethora of bags he'd somehow managed to miss despite his clumsy exploring, and positively cheered when he spied a large pack of matches and kindling in the far corner by the hearth. He made his way to grab it with a relieved, albeit shaky, grin on his bruised smarting face.

 _ **Powers!** _ James abruptly barked irately, finally seeming to tune in from his grumpy, self-imposed time-out. _Use your fucking **powers** , you dickhead! You could have lit up a dozen candles already if you'd put that bloody brain of yours to work!_

 _I didn't know we could use fire,_ Harry protested, though he sounded more than a little wary than properly outraged. _I thought we only had one power, or two at the least! How was I to know we could have more than one power?!_

 _You are **so stupid.**_

 _If I'm stupid, then what the hell does that make you?_ Harry sniped back.

 _Smarter than you,_ James quipped, before making a low, groaning sound that both annoyed and guilted Harry. _Remember when I said that we're a Power Sponge? Well, what do you think a sponge does? It **soaks shit up**. And what did we do when we went to Hogwarts? We soaked shit up. There were Fire Elementals there, am I correct?_

 _Yes,_ Harry reluctantly agreed.

 _Well, we soaked their shit up, too. Along with all the other Active and Passive elemental people there. We have access to every single power every student there has, and we can use it to their fullest capabilities without many repercussions – because, as I've said before, I worked alongside said powers and molded their every unique print to suit our trigger finger. We're more advanced than even their original owners, and we have so much more control than they have at any given time. That includes fire._

 _So I can control fire?_ Harry asked dumbly.

 _Just build a damn fire, knobhead._

Annoyed, but just that bit more grateful for the voice in his head, Harry carefully lowered himself to the floor in a hunched crouch position, and forced himself to imagine a bright, cheerful fire burning away at the wood in the hearth – eventually setting the candles aside momentarily to help him focus more. But of course, nothing happened.

So, frustrated with the lack of anything to show his effort, and with nothing special to lose other than his life, he tossed a few handfuls of the quick-burning kindle onto the pile and retook his painful crouched position before the small fireplace. He forced his tired mind to concentrate as hard as it could on creating a fire - a flicker of __something__ , at least. So single-minded was he, that he almost didn't realize he'd made a spark, at all.

It took a hell of a lot more effort than moving an object, or making something more comfortable on reflex, but he was satisfied in the end when a tiny baby flame popped into existence smack bang in the middle of the logs, and steadily grew until it was a big, cheerful inferno that lit up the entire main part of the cabin and crackled happily.

He slipped onto his rear uncomprehendingly, staring at the orange mess chewing heartily on wood and hardly noticing the warmth soaking into his grateful body.

 _Congratulations, you've just made your first fire,_ said James wryly, although his voice seemed a bit softer than usual – was that pride Harry detected? It was gone, as if it'd felt itself being spotted by Harry, and James returned to his usual coil of bitter humor. _Don't burn the place down, alright? Not even Tom would build another little hut to keep your flammable arse from being homeless._

 _I'll try,_ Harry answered quietly, focusing inwardly on finding the mist that he identified as James – and giving it a small smile when it looked his way in incomprehension. He hurriedly turned to light the candles, though, before James could bother generating an answer.

 _Now, why doesn't that sound promising?_ muttered James dryly, but he seemed confident enough that Harry wouldn't accidentally killthem in the middle of the night. He soon abated and left Harry to setting up the candles in the hut – placing not just one, but three in the walk-in, and four in the kitchenette.

But after a minute of quick thinking, Harry reluctantly blew out the walk-in pantry's candles, and made his way into the bathroom. He didn't need anything from the walk-in, but he did need to get washed up and check out this time's injuries. He'd been laying in that snow for who knew how long. Thankfully, the candles he'd put in here were placed so strategically that he needn't have turned on a light bulb even if he had one.

Which would have been more convenient, and less painful for his eyes.

Not that he thought low lighting was bad – he could have done better with more darkness. He was absolutely horrified. The boy standing in the mirror looked like he'd been roughing it for years instead of a few hours. He had sticks and twigs strewn throughout the entire messy, knotted mop of black hair atop his head, and he was covered in blooming bruises that spread from the tip of his head to – well, he didn't bother doubting they were covering his entire body.

Gingerly, Harry shucked off the thick woolen shirt that was obviously too big for his skinny frame – and sucked in a short, sharp breath at the gruesome sight of so much discoloration on his torso. He looked like he'd been shoved into a fight with a garbage disposal truck, and won with only the skin off his teeth. Where Tom had played with his Adams apple earlier, was a blossoming circular bruise – proving just how numb the cold had made him to make him think Tom was being _gentle_.

When the Hell was Tom _gentle?_

The stairs hadn't been so kind, either. He'd been knocked about pretty bad – his torso and arms were scraped up, and there was the odd cut or two that was deep enough to leave a pretty bad stain. But they'd long since been clotted up.

He sighed, and then began his Bone Exercise; inhaling as deeply as he could, exhaling as slowly as he could; Twisting side to side; Bending down at the waist; Bringing his knees up to his chest, twice each; And then doing three squats to test how limber his spine was. He was smiling in relief by the end of it, luck having evidently been on his side – at least long enough to save him from any fractures or broken bones. But that didn't mean he wasn't still awfully tender.

He was lucky Tom didn't want to fuck tonight, seeing as he wouldn't be able to take any of it – his back may have been fine enough to bend, and his legs strong enough to carry his weight, but Tom would have been too rough with him, and he actually would have ended up with broken bones.

 _Yoga teacher, much?_ Leered James.

 _You know it,_ Harry huffed back.

Hesitantly, he shed his trousers, pants and socks, and turned to get the shower going. It amazed him when hot water poured out immediately, and he couldn't help the little moan of pleasure he gave as steam quickly filled the room and heated his cold flesh. It was almost too good to be true. He stepped into the hard spray as soon as it cooled enough for him to not have his skin melt off, and moaned even louder than before at the lovely pressure on his sore body. It was heaven – better than that, even.

Not even the shower at home had pressure as insanely wicked as this – and that was saying something, as his Dad had fitted multi-pressure shower heads into the two bathrooms they had. They all loved a bit of stiff massaging pressure. Harry more so than the others.

 _As good as this feels, and all,_ groaned James, as if he too could feel the wonderful pressure of the shower head on his body. _But we need to get some rest before Tom comes back, or we have to fend off some bloody animal looking for food. We're dead on our feet as it is._

 _Just a bit longer,_ Harry said breathlessly, almost twirling under the plentiful spread of water in his bid to grab the shampoo and conditioner, which sat on a handy ledge in the corner – blinking when he saw two tooth brushes and a tube of toothpaste sat waiting beside them. Undaunted, and put in a ridiculously good mood from the water, he scrubbed them into his hair in quick succession, and allowed himself a little time to relax under the spray – interrupted only by the soap he lathered on his body and scrubbed in.

It stung a little in some places, mostly where the cuts were, but the pain did nothing to bring him down from his little happy cloud. Not even the dizzying feeling of sleep deprivation touched it, although it did make him consider James's suggestion a little more seriously.

It wouldn't do to plant his face in the floor and injure himself even more.

Reluctantly, after picking one of the toothbrushes and giving his teeth a good brush, Harry gave the shower knobs a twist and grabbed a towel to dry his hair. That didn't last long, as every time the fluffy wool passed over his face, he could feel his eyes drooping.

 _I've got it,_ James mumbled, and after a quiet second where nothing but the quiet wisp of wool passing over rapidly drying skin was heard, Harry felt the heavy, damp locks on his head warm slightly, and smiled when water no longer dripped down his forehead, and his hair was well and truly fluffy, dry and light once more. _You're welcome._

 _Thanks,_ Harry managed to say through a jaw-breaking yawn. James merely grunted in reply as he blew two of the candles out and carried the one lit one with him back down the hall, dirty clothes bundled under his arm and the damp towel slung around his waist. He shoved the ball of fabric to the floor by the bunk, and tore into one of the bags with laziness rivaling a sloths. He pulled out a random shirt that was vaguely his size, a jumper, a pair of black pants and a thick pair of woolen trousers.

He couldn't have gotten into them any quicker.

 _Blow out the candles so we don't waste them, Harry,_ James told him through a heavy yawn.

Harry slowly trudged around the cabin, blowing out the candles he'd placed on many of the surfaces to lighten the place up – and absolutely hating himself for putting so many of the damn things out and fucking _lighting_ them. James was quietly sniggering by the time he'd rounded the kitchenette and all around the fireplace, but he too seemed as drained as Harry.

Harry didn't even have it in him to worry about how long the fire would last him. A couple of hours, maybe, if he made the fire a bit more conservative. But then again, the cold made him a selfish person, and he was a whore for heat in such cold extremes.

And so, giving the cheerfully burning hearth one last bleary-eyed look, Harry settled down in the nest he called a bunk, sighing gratefully as his body sank into the blankets and thin mattress, that were blessedly both warmed by the far-reaching fire. His eyes fluttered closed, and the last thing they took in being the warm flickering light dancing on the wooden ceiling.

 **-oOoOoOo-**

"Wotcher, Cutie."

Harry's eyes snapped open – and he scrambled back in the blanketed bunk as he came face to face with a pair of haunting pale blue eyes, desperately smothering the terror-stricken scream that tried to tear itself from his mouth. An unnaturally pale, smirking face now hung above his bunk where he'd been laying, its skin glowing obscenely in the lowly lit cabin, and looking so much like moon with legs – it was like the man was a pop-out from a macabre book.

Bile raced up Harry's throat so fast, it was a wonder he managed to keep it from spurting out through his nostrils. But he couldn't take his eyes off the man somehow crouching over his bed – and sicking up brought the unfailingly natural reflex of shutting one's eyes despite what else might be happening. He swallowed thickly, grimacing at the acrid taste of last nights supper and snacks hanging in the back of his throat. Sweets never stayed sweet after being swallowed, they tasted much like acid on the way up, and he'd never regretted eating those things more than he did now.

"Decorum would have you greet me back, you know," said the mysterious man in an even more mysteriously accented voice – a mix and mash of British and Russian, after a moment of heavy silence. He gracefully lowered himself until he was sitting properly in the nest of Harry's blankets, and gave his long limbs a lithe stretch – as if he'd been sitting in that crouched position for an incredibly long time, and he was pushing the feeling back into them. Harry didn't like that thought.

"And it would have made you knock before entering," Harry got out in a strangled voice. The man regarded him intensely, but even after having one of the worst shocks in life and feeling like he'd never sleep again, Harry was no closer to reading the man's emotions. He couldn't judge what eggshell he'd be smashed underfoot.

"I go where I wish," said the man haughtily, tilting Harry an odd little smirk that begged to be explored – or to be run from. "Riddle has allowed me free reign of your little abode, Cutie. And if that isn't enough, he said you were to cater to my needs. Can you guess what they might be?" He asked, raising a sharp, sightly eyebrow, and flashing him that damned smirk.

Harry looked at him blackly. "I can cook you supper," he said stiffly, not daring to show his uncertainty when the man's dark amusement was obviously beginning to grow. "But I will not allow you to touch me whenever you want. Only Tom can touch me."

"Ah," sighed the man, a bit too glibly to be believable – and Harry couldn't help the sour look that shaped his features when that pale face turned to smile at him. "But you misunderstand me. My needs tend to be a little more.. _delicate_ , than what you might be used to. I'm sure you've read about all sorts of things in your young life – and I know this, as this day and age, nothing beats a hormonal teenager into reading faster than romance and erotic books. Tell me, Cutie, what kind of erotic books do you read?" He practically purred, his tongue curling around the epithet.

Harry stared at him, wondering if his newly found fire power would kill the man quicker than throwing him around the room. "I don't read erotica," he finally muttered. "Or romances," he quickly added, when it looked like the man would question him on it.

" _Blegh!_ " The man spat viciously, sneering at him in disgust, as if he'd said that air was meant to be sucked in through your arse and out your mouth – and wasn't _that_ a kicker, as _he_ was the one intruding in Harry's hut, not the other way around. His accent had gotten a lot thicker, too, less of it sounding British and becoming purely Russian. "You children and your computers. It is all you do these days, is play games and go on those chatty, trash sites for those mindless cretins to speak about their pathetic lives! Fucking uncultured swine, all of you!" He snapped, and spat out a rapid, guttural sound in what Harry supposed was Russian. But it didn't sound anything like the Russian he'd ever heard. It fascinated him, despite the currents of negativity and heart-stopping anger radiating from the ghostly man.

It drew him in, and pushed his Fight or Flight instincts to flight mode. He sat on his hands, as if that would help him stay put.

"It is Old Prussian, an extinct Baltic language that you vould know nothing about," the man muttered bitterly by way of explanation, when he noticed Harry's captivated, conflicted expression. "I vas born at the turn of the seventeenth century, and I survived an encounter vith vhat you vould call a Vampyre, vhen I became twenty-two. She fed on me because she liked my looks, and gave me a new life vhen she realized vhat a good companion I could be. It vasn't long before she addled my mind and set me on my family. I killed them all, and then I killed her. And I haven't stopped since."

"Why are you telling me this?" Harry tentatively asked, sinking his teeth into his plentiful lower lip and worrying it ever so slightly. "I don't even know your name, or what you're doing here."

The man looked at him strangely, blinking somewhat stupidly. "I do not know," he finally said, clearing his throat rather indelicately and seeming to possess more of a conscious mind now. "I think, you're one of those people that others can just talk to, without needing the limits and boundaries they set with other people. I had meant to insult you and rave a little, but tell you all that? No."

"That couldn't have been true, though," Harry said, a bit too disbelievingly to be polite, as the man gave him an incredibly sharp look that had him regretting opening his mouth in the first place. "Look, I don't know if you hit your head in any particular way on the way here and broke in to escape the cold outside, but Vampires aren't real -"

"You locked the door, didn't you," the man suddenly stated, staring at him somewhat patiently.

Harry slowly nodded. "First thing I did was check it," he said quietly.

"And I'm still inside, aren't I," the man continued to say, raising his eyebrow in a similar fashion to before, but a lot less saucily. At Harry's blank, uncomprehending face, he smiled crisply. "I am a Vampire, Cutie, just as sure as you are Tom Riddles little brood mare and whipping boy. Only I'm a lot more speculated about than you, and have a much better reception for being a soul-sucking Demon of the night."

"I – I don't –"

"My name is Yven," the Vampire said, cutting Harry's pathetic attempts at argument off easily. "And I am here to guard Riddle's considerable aspects - AKA, __you__ , from the Mutts that come sniffing and pissing on your cabin door of a night. I will be here every night watching you, inside this cabin or out, and I am told that you will be responsible for feeding me. Nothing will come to harm you, if you remain within fifty feet of this cabin - and I will know if you venture further and I __will not be__ _ _happy__ if I have to find you and drag your arse back here. Follow those rules and you will be safe.. enough to live another day, at least."

 _ _Fucking shit,__ balked James.

In the blink of an eye, Yven was gone from sight, but Harry's trained phantom feelers could sense him lurking in the bathroom, close to where he pictured the sink to be.

Where he'd just finished showering and tending to his wounds.

 _ _That'd be about right,__ Harry said grimly, gingerly lowering himself until he was settled back into the groove he'd made for himself. _If you thought we were fucked before, I guess you could say we're dead now._

 **-oOoOoOo-**

 **A little note here, in case someone caught the reference.**

 ** _Misery_ is a Stephen King novel that was adapted into a movie - it consists of a similar situation, although Annie Wilkes didn't put Paul Sheldon in the predicament she found him in. She does continue to abuse him and torture him, though. **

**Yikes, Kathy Bates is an amazing actress to have performed an A plus for THAT movie.**


End file.
